UC-NRLF 


THE   BEACON   BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED    BY 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE 


AARON  BURR 

BY 

HENRY    CHILDS    MERWIN 


BUSHED  BY~ 


V^_  J "^  -_^_      " 


AARON      BURR 


HENRY  CHILDS  MERWIN 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 
MCMIX 


Copyright, 
By  Small,  Maynard  £ff  Company 

(Incorporated} 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


Press  of 

George  H.  El/is,  Boston,  U.S. A 


The  photogravure  used  as  a  frontispiece 
to  this  volume  is  from  a  photograph  of  the 
painting  ly  Gilbert  Stuart,  in  the  possession 
of  the  New  Jersey  Historical  Society.  The 
present  engraving  is  by  John  Andrew  & 
Son,  Boston. 


238823 


PEEFACE. 

The  materials  for  this  sketch  have  "been 
drawn  largely  from  the  Life  of  Burr  written 
by  the  late  James  Parton.  Mr.  Parton  had 
access  not  only  to  books  and  manuscripts 
relating  to  Burr,  but  also  to  many  persons 
who  had  known  him  personally,  and  had 
been  impressed  by  his  peculiar  traits.  En 
joying  these  advantages,  and  having  a 
marked  talent  for  biography,  Mr.  Parton 
produced  a  book  as  interesting  as  a  novel ; 
and  yet  he  did  not  quite  succeed  in  laying 
bare  the  central  motive-power  of  Burros 
character,  he  did  not  paint  a  figure  so 
lifelike  as  are,  for  example,  the  figures  of 
Thackeray.  Much  less  can  the  present 
writer  have  succeeded  in  so  difficult  a  task, 
but  he  has  endeavored  to  state  the  problem 
fairly.  Almost  every  important  act  in 
Burr's  public  career  is  susceptible  of  a 
double  interpretation,  and  was  diversely  con 
strued  by  his  contemporaries.  Never  was 
there  a  man  more  warmly  loved  or  more  bit- 


viii  PBEFACE 

terly  hated.  His  life,  therefore,  presents  a 
most  interesting  study,  aside  from  the  fact 
that  he  played  a  brilliant  part  in  the  Revo 
lutionary  War,  at  the  bar,  and  in  politics, 
and  that  it  was  he  who  caused  the  tragic 
death  of  Alexander  Hamilton. 

H.  C.  M. 

SEPTEMBER,  1899. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

1756 

February  6.  Aaron  Burr  was  born  at 
Newark,  New  Jersey. 

1757 

September  24.  His  father  died  at  the  age 
of  forty -one. 

1758 

His  mother  died  ;  and  he,  with  his  sister, 
was  taken  to  the  home  of  their  maternal 
uncle,  the  Eev.  Timothy  Edwards,  at 
Elizabethtown,  New  Jersey. 

1766 
Ran  away  to  sea,  but  was  brought  back. 

1768 

Entered  Princeton  College  as  a  Sopho 
more. 

1772 

Was  graduated  with  honors,  and  con 
tinued  at  Princeton. 

1773 

Studied  theology  with  Dr.  Joseph  Bel 
lamy. 


x  CHRONOLOGY 

1774 

Began  the  study  of  law  at  Litchfield, 
Connecticut,  with  Tappan  Reeve,  his 
brother-in-law. 

1775 

July.  Joined  Washington' s  army  at  Cam 
bridge. 

September  20.  Started  from  Newburyport 
with  Benedict  Arnold's  expedition  to 
Canada. 

December  31.  Took  part  in  the  storming 
of  Quebec. 

1776 

April.  Left  Arnold,  and  in  May  joined 
the  staff  of  General  Washington  at  New 
York. 

June.  Resigned  his  position  with  Wash 
ington,  and  joined  the  staff  of  General 
Putnam. 

September  15.  Rescued  the  brigade  of 
General  Knox. 

1777 
July.  Placed  in  command  of  a  regiment. 


f 

CHRONOLOGY  xi 

1777  (continued) 

September.  Bouted  the  enemy  at  Hacken- 
sack. 

November.    Joined    the    main   army   at 
Valley  Forge. 

1778 

January.  Placed  in  command   of  "The 
Gulf." 

June  28.  Commanded  a  brigade  in  the 
battle  of  Momnouth. 

1779 

January.  Placed  in  command  of  "The 
lines ' '  in  Westchester  County. 
March  10.  Resigned  from  the  army. 
June.  Carried  despatches  to  Washington 
from  General  McDougall. 
July.     Led    an   impromptu   defence   of 
New  Haven. 

1780-81 
Was  recuperating  and  studying  law. 

1782 

January.  Passed  an  examination  at  Al 
bany  for  admission  to  the  bar. 
July  2.  Married  to  Theodosia  Prevost. 


xii  CHBONOLOGY 

1783 

December.  Eemoved  to  New  York. 
His  daughter  Theodosia  was  born. 

1784-85 
Member  of  the  State  Assembly. 

1789 

September  27.  Appointed  Attorney-gen 
eral. 

1791 

January.  Elected  to  the  United  States 
Senate. 

1794 

Eejected  by  Washington  as  a  candidate 
for  the  office  of  minister  to  Prance. 
His  wife  died. 

1797 

Failed  of  re-election  to  the  United  States 
Senate. 
Elected  to  the  New  York  Assembly. 

1797-99 

Engaged  in  law  business,  in  land  specu 
lation,  and  in  rebuilding  the  Republican 
party  in  the  State  of  New  York. 
September  2,  1799.    Fought  his  first  duel. 


CHRONOLOGY  xiii 

1801 

February.  Chosen  Vice- President  of  the 
United  States. 

February    2.     His    daughter    Theodosia 
married  to  Joseph  Alston. 

1804 

April.  Defeated  as  a  candidate  for  Gov 
ernor  of  New  York. 
July  11.  Duel  with  Hamilton. 
July  21.  Indicted  for  murder,  and  left 
New  York  for  the  South. 
October.  Indicted  in  New  Jersey. 
December.  Eesumed  his  duties  as  Vice- 
President  at  Washington. 

1805 

February.  Presided  at  the  trial  of  Judge 
Chase. 

March  3.  Took  leave  of  the  Senate. 
April  10.  Left  Philadelphia  for  the  West 
and  South. 

April  30.  Embarked  at  Pittsburg,  and 
sailed  down  the  Ohio. 
June  25.  Arrived  at  New  Orleans. 


xiv  CHRONOLOGY 

1805  (continued) 

September.  Stopped  at  St.  Louis  on  his 
return. 

November.  Returned  to  Washington. 
December.  Went  to  Philadelphia. 

1806 

January-April.     At    Philadelphia,  pre 
paring  for  the  Western  expedition. 
April.  Applied  to  Jefferson  for  a  foreign 
appointment. 

August.  Started  down  the  Ohio. 
November.  Arrested,  tried,  and  acquitted 
at  Frankfort,  Kentucky. 

1807 

January.  Arrested  at  Natchez,  but  re 
leased  by  the  grand  jury. 
Fled  across  the  Mississippi. 
February.  Arrested    in    Alabama,    and 
sent  North. 

May-June.  Trial  at  Eichmond,  Virginia. 
Acquitted. 

1808 

June.  Sailed  for  England. 
July  16.  Arrived  in  London. 


CHEONOLOGY  xv 

1808  (continued) 
December  22.  Started  for  Edinburgh. 

1809 

February.  Eeturned  to  London. 
April  4.     Taken  into  custody  by  officers 
from  the  Foreign  Office. 
April     24.        Sailed     for     Gottenburg, 
Sweden. 
October  21.  Crossed  to  Denmark. 

1810 
February  16.  Arrived  in  Paris. 

1811 

July  20.  Procured  a  passport  after  more 
than  a  year's  delay. 

October  1.  Sailed  for  home  on  the   Vig 
ilant. 

The  ship  being  captured   and  taken  to 
Yarmouth,  Burr  went  up  to  London. 

1812 

March.  Sailed  in  the  Aurora  from  Graves- 
end. 

May.  Arrived  at  Boston. 
June  7.  Eeturned  to  New  York,  where 


xvi  CHRONOLOGY 

lie  spent  the  rest  of  his  life,  engaged  in 
practising  law. 

July.  Eeceived  a  letter  announcing  the 
death  of  his  grandson ;  and  a  few  months 
later  Theodosia  was  lost  at  sea. 

1833 

Married  the  widow  Jumel. 
December.  Suffered    a    slight    paralytic 
shock. 

1834 
Was  rendered  helpless  by  a  second  stroke. 

1836 

June.  Was  removed  to  Port  Eichmond 
on  Staten  Island. 
September  14.  Died. 
September  16.  Was  buried  at  Princeton. 


AARON  BURR 


AARON 


I. 

AARON  BUKR  was  born  at  Newark, 
New  Jersey,  in  February,  1756,  of  the 
purest  and  most  pious  stock  that  New 
England  could  boast. 

His  father,  the  Eev.  Aaron  Burr,  had 
been  for  twenty  years  minister  of  the 
Presbyterian  church  in  Newark  ;  and  he 
was  also  president  of  the  College  of  New 
Jersey,  or  Nassau  Hall,  which  in  the 
year  of  his  son's  birth  was  moved  to 
Princeton,  and  became  known  as  Prince 
ton  College.  He  was  still  a  young  man; 
however,  having  been  settled  at  the  age 
of  twenty-  two.  In  figure  and  in  many 
of  his  traits  Aaron  Burr,  the  younger, 
closely  resembled  his  father,  who  is  de 
scribed  as  short  and  slight,  but  well  and 
compactly  built,  "  with^  clear,  dark  eyes 
of  a  soft  lustre,  quite  unlike  the  piercing 
orbs  of  his  son."  He  was  noted,  as  was 
his  son,  for  the  peculiar  dignity  and 


BUBR 

fascination  of  his  manner,  for  his  great 
courtesy  and  tact,  for  the  clear,  concise 
style  of  his  speaking  and  writing,  for  his 
indifference  to  public  opinion,  for  his 
skill  as  a  teacher,  for  his  generous  ex 
penditure  of  time  and  money  in  the  edu 
cation  of  his  numerous  proteges,  and, 
finally,  for  his  immense  energy  and  dis 
regard  of  illness,  fatigue,  or  any  other 
obstacle  in  his  path. 

His  wife  was  Esther,  the  third  daughter 
of  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  first  saw  her 
in  1746,  while  he  was  on  a  short  visit  to 
her  father  in  Stockbridge,  where  Mr. 
Edwards,  with  his  wife  and  ten  children, 
was  then  living.  Esther  Edwards  was 
at  that  time  a  girl  of  fifteen  $  and  Mr. 
Burr  did  not  see  her  again  till  1752, 
when  he  paid  another  visit  to  Stock- 
bridge,  remaining  but  three  days.  In 
those  three  days,  however,  the  business 
appears  to  have  been  transacted,  for  two 
weeks  after  his  return  he  sent  an  under 
graduate  to  bring  Esther  Edwards  and 


A  AEON  BUB&  £ 

her  mother  to  Princeton.  Tfrey  arrived 
on  Saturday,  May  27 ;  and  on  the  fol 
lowing  Monday,  in  the  evening,  the 
wedding  took  place. 

The  "  patriarchal "  style  of  President 
Burr's  courtship  provoked  some  good- 
humored  comment  at  the  time,  but  the 
marriage  turned  out  most  happily.  The 
home  letters  of  a  boy  who  was  then  a 
student  at  the  college  have  been  pre 
served,  and  in  one  of  them  he  says  of 
Mrs.  Burr,  "I  think  her  a  person  of 
great  beauty,  though  I  must  say  she  is 
rather  too  young  for  the  president," 
who  was  thirty-eight  years  of  age. 

Esther  Edwards  was  beautiful,  viva 
cious,  and  deeply  religious.  She  had 
been  married  only  about  four  years 
when  her  husband  died  of  a  fever  pro 
duced  by  overwork  and  hard  travelling 
in  hot  weather  $  and  the  widow  was 
left  with  two  small  children,  Aaron,  not 
yet  a  year  old,  and  Sarah  about  two 
years  old. 


,4  ,'.•;;  .  AAEON  BUEE 
•  A  month1  after  lier  husband's  death 
she  wrote  to  her  father  :  ' '  My  little  son 
has  been  sick  with  a  slow  fever  ever 
since  my  brother  left  us,  and  has  been 
brought  to  the  brink  of  the  grave ;  but 
I  hope  in  mercy  God  is  bringing  him 
back  again.  I  was  enabled,  after  a  se 
vere  struggle  with  nature,  to  resign  the 
child  with  the  greatest  freedom.  God 
showed  me  that  the  children  were  not 
my  own,  but  his,  and  that  he  had  a 
right  to  recall  what  he  had  lent.  .  .  . 
A  few  days  after  this,  one  evening,  in 
talking  of  the  glorious  state  my  dear 
departed  husband  must  be  in,  my  soul 
was  carried  out  in  such  large  desires 
after  that  glorious  state  that  I  was  forced 
to  retire  from  the  family  to  conceal 
my  joy.  ...  I  think,  dear  sir,  I  had 
that  night  a  foretaste  of  heaven.  ...  I 
slept  but  little  ;  and,  when  I  did,  my 
dreams  were  all  of  heavenly  and  divine 
things." 
Of  such  parentage  came  that  Aaron 


AAEON  BUEE  5 

Burr  whose  name,  whether  rightly  or 
wrongly,  has  been  for  half  a  century  a 
by-word  for  irreligion,  profligacy,  and 
falsehood. 

Within  a  few  months  death  deprived 
the  fatherless  children  of  all  their  near 
relatives, —  their  mother,  their  grand 
father,  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  had  suc 
ceeded  his  son-in-law  as  president  of  the 
college,  and  Jonathan  Edwards' s  wife. 
Their  father  had  left  property  amply 
sufficient  for  their  support  5  and  they 
were  brought  up  in  the  family  of  their 
uncle,  Jonathan  Edwards' s  eldest  son, 
the  Eev.  Timothy  Edwards,  who  lived 
at  Elizabethtown. 

They  had  for  tutor  Tappan  Eeeve,  af 
terward  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Connecticut,  who  fell  in  love  with  Sarah 
Burr,  and  married  her  when  she  was 
seventeen.  She  was  long  an  invalid, 
and  died  before  reaching  middle  life. 
She  is  said  to  have  been  of  a  noble  and 
commanding  face  and  figure  5  and  it  is 


6  AAEON  BUEB 

certain  that  her  brother  cherished  her 

memory,  and  often  spoke  of  her. 

It  was  almost  inevitable  that  a  boy  of 
Aaron  Burr's  spirit  should  run  away  to 
sea  5  and  this  he  did  at  the  early  age  of 
ten,  escaping  to  New  York,  fifteen  miles 
distant  from  Elizabethtown,  and  ship 
ping  as  cabin  boy  on  a  vessel  about  to 
sail.  The  next  morning,  however,  while 
the  ship  still  lay  at  the  wharf,  the  Eev. 
Timothy  Edwards  boarded  her.  The 
boy,  who  was  at  work  upon  the  deck, 
saw  him  coming,  and  immediately  sprang 
into  the  rigging,  and  climbed  to  the 
mast-head.  His  uncle  ordered  him  down, 
but,  being  unable  to  fetch  him,  was 
placed  at  an  obvious  disadvantage.  His 
commands  soon  softened  into  entreaties, 
and  finally  became  a  negotiation,  as  the 
result  of  which  Aaron  returned  to  his 
home,  but  with  a  guarantee  that  no  pun 
ishment  should  be  inflicted.  The  Eev. 
Timothy  Edwards  was  a  kind  and  good 
man,  who  duly  admonished  and  flogged 


AAEOK  BUEE  7 

his  nephew  as  occasion  required,  but  he 
seems  to  have  had  no  influence  over  him. 
Pierpont  Edwards,  the  famous  lawyer, 
another  uncle  of  Aaron  Burr,  but  only 
six  years  his  senior,  was  at  school  with 
him  for  a  time  at  Elizabethtown,  and, 
in  a  letter  written  when  Aaron  was 
seven  years  old,  he  says,  "  Aaron  Burr 
is  here,  is  hearty,  goes  to  school,  and 
learns  bravely.7' 

At  eleven  Aaron  was  prepared  to 
enter  Princeton  College,  having  read 
Virgil  and  acquired  the  Greek  alphabet ; 
but  he  was  rejected  on  account  of  his 
youth.  He  did  his  best,  however,  to 
accomplish  the  same  object  by  mastering 
at  home  the  studies  of  the  first  two 
college  years,  and  then  in  his  thirteenth 
year  applying  for  admission  to  the  Junior 
Class.  This  application  also  was  refused  ; 
but  he  was  permitted,  as  a  special  favor, 
to  join  the  Sophomore  Class,  although 
the  limit  of  age  for  that  class  was  fifteen 
years.  The  boy  entered  college  with  an 


8  AAEON  BUBB 

extravagant  idea  of  the  learning  and 
capacity  of  his  classmates ;  and  being 
resolved,  nevertheless,  that  they  should 
not  outstrip  him,  he  applied  himself  to 
his  books  with  the  greatest  ardor.  Find 
ing  that  he  could  not  study  so  well  after 
dinner  as  before,  he  became  very  abstemi 
ous,  and  under  this  regimen  he  is  said 
to  have  labored  sixteen  and  sometimes 
even  eighteen  hours  a  day  ;  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  he  looked  pale  and 
ill.  When  the  examination  came,  Burr 
found  himself  so  far  in  advance  of  his 
classmates  that  the  motive  to  extraor 
dinary  exertion  no  longer  existed,  and 
thenceforth  he  was  as  idle  as  he  had 
formerly  been  industrious.  All  through 
life,  however,  he  was  a  great  reader. 

Burr  was  popular  with  his  fellow-stu 
dents,  and  took  a  leading  part  in  the  col 
lege  societies  and  amusements.  One  in 
cident  of  his  career  at  Princeton  has 
survived.  He  belonged  to  a  literary 
club  called  the  Cliosophic,  the  members 


AAEON   BUEE  9 

of  which  presided  in  turn  at  its  meet 
ings.  Professors  as  well  as  students  were 
members  of  the  society,  and  on  one  occa 
sion  it  happened  that  Burr  was  in  the 
chair  when  a  professor  by  whom  he  had 
often  been  admonished  came  in  late. 
Burr,  with  that  self-possession  for  which 
he  was  ever  noted,  ordered  the  professor 
to  rise  and  then  administered  to  him  a 
dignified  rebuke  for  his  want  of  punctu 
ality,  observing  that  the  older  members 
of  the  club  were  expected  to  set  a  good 
example  to  the  younger,  and  concluding 
with  the  hope  that  he  should  not  be 
obliged  to  recur  to  the  subject  again. 
The  astonished  professor  was  then  per 
mitted  to  take  his  seat,  amid  the  laugh 
ter  of  the  assembly.  Several  of  Burr's 
college  compositions  have  been  pre 
served  ;  and,  though  they  do  not  show 
much  imagination,  they  do  exhibit  a 
maturity  of  thought  astonishing  in  a 
boy  of  fifteen. 
In  1772,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Burr 


10  AABON  BUBB 

was  graduated  with  the  highest  honors ; 
and  at  Commencement  he  delivered  an 
oration  which  was  well,  but  not  enthusi 
astically,  received.  He  made,  it  was 
said,  "a  graceful  appearance/'  but 
spoke  too  rapidly  and  with  too  much 
emphasis.  For  about  a  year  after  grad 
uation  Burr  continued  at  Princeton,  as 
his  father  had  done,  studying,  reading, 
and  enjoying  such  pleasures  as  the  place 
afforded.  In  the  summer  he  spent  much 
time  at  Elizabethtown,  where  he  gained 
a  knowledge  of  boating,  which  was  of 
service  to  him  in  after  years. 

He  was  deliberating  upon  the  choice 
of  a  profession,  and  he  even  seems  to 
have  had  thoughts  of  entering  the  minis 
try.  At  this  time  he  was,  apparently, 
a  believer  in  Orthodox  Christianity, 
though  not  what  was  called  a  professor 
of  it.  During  Burr's  Senior  year  at 
Princeton  a  great  revival  occurred  in 
the  college.  Many  of  the  undergradu 
ates  were  converted  5  and  Burr,  both 


AAEON  BUBB  11 

from  his  popularity  and  from  the  spe 
cially  religious  nature  of  his  ancestors, 
became  a  particular  object  of  entreaty. 
It  is  said  that  he  was  moved  by  this,  and 
that  he  consulted  Dr.  Witherspoon, 
president  of  the  college,  as  to  the  char 
acter  of  the  scenes  which  were  taking 
place  about  him.  The  clergy  at  this 
time  were  divided  in  opinion  upon  the 
subject  of  revivals,  most  of  those  who 
had  been  educated  in  England  disap 
proving  of  them.  Dr.  Witherspoon,  a 
descendant  of  John  Knox,  belonged  to 
this  class;  and  he,  it  is  said,  dissuaded 
Burr  from  yielding  to  the  spirit  of  the 
revival,  assuring  him  that  it  was  fanati 
cal  rather  than  religious. 

A  year  after  his  graduation  Burr  re 
solved  to  settle  the  religious  question 
once  for  all  in  his  own  mind  by  pursuing 
a  course  of  investigation  under  Dr. 
Joseph  Bellamy,  of  Bethlehem,  in  Con 
necticut.  Dr.  Bellamy  had  studied 
theology  under  Jonathan  Edwards,  and 


12  AAEON   BUEE 

was  himself  a  famous  preacher  and 
writer  upon  theological  subjects,  to 
whom  so  many  candidates  for  the  minis 
try  resorted  that  his  house  became  a 
theological  seminary  upon  a  small  scale. 
Hither  in  the  autumn  of  1773  Burr  re 
paired,  and  with  his  accustomed  ardor 
entered  upon  the  course  which  he  had 
proposed. 

Dr.  Bellamy  prided  himself  upon  his 
skill  in  the  Socratic  method,  a  large  part 
of  his  instruction  being  given  by  ques 
tion  and  answer ;  and  he  would  often 
invite  a  pupil  to  assume  the  part  of  a 
sceptic,  and  raise  objections  against  the 
Christian  faith  for  him,  the  doctor,  to 
answer.  His  object  was,  of  course,  to 
teach  the  young  men  to  think  for  them 
selves  and  to  analyze  the  grounds  of  their 
belief.  But  this  method  proved  fatal 
with  Aaron  Burr.  Burr  had  a  mind 
extraordinarily  acute,  alert,  and  logical, 
and  a  coolness  of  disposition  which  gave 
him  control  of  all  his  resources  under 


AAEON  BUBK  13 

the  most  disturbing  conditions.  When 
the  Eev.  Dr.  Bellamy  encountered  this 
opponent  in  the  guise  of  a  pupil,  the 
result  was  disastrous.  In  the  following 
spring  Burr  left  Dr.  Bellamy's  house, 
convinced,  to  use  his  own  language,  that 
"the  road  to  heaven  was  open  to  all 
alike."  Ever  afterward  he  avoided 
disputes  upon  the  subject  of  religion  ; 
but  when,  as  often  happened,  he  was 
importuned  by  those  who  had  known  his 
father  or  his  mother  to  follow  in  their 
footsteps,  he  met  these  advances  with 
unfailing  civility,  and  sometimes  even 
with  tenderness.  Burr's  nature  was 
essentially  irreligious  5  and  his  case 
might  be  cited  in  support  of  Mr.  Gal- 
ton's  theory  that  qualities  which  are 
predominant  in  one  generation  are  often 
exceptionally  deficient  in  the  succeeding 
one,  reappearing  again,  perhaps,  in  the 
third  or  fourth  generation. 

Upon  leaving  Dr.  Bellamy,  Burr  de 
termined  to  study  law  with  his  sister's 


14  AAEON  BTJEE 

husband,  Tappan  Eeeve,  at  Litchfield, 
in  Connecticut.  There  he  spent  the 
summer  of  1774,  amusing  himself  with 
his  horse  and  with  "the  girls,"  to  whom 
there  are  frequent  allusions  in  his  letters. 
One  girl  made  a  declaration  of  love  to 
him  5  and  his  uncle,  Thaddeus  Burr, 
endeavored  to  persuade  him  into  mar 
riage  with  another,  who  was  heiress  to  a 
large  fortune.  Burr  was  at  this  time  a 
gay,  handsome,  rollicking  young  man, 
generous  of  heart,  cool  of  head,  greatly 
beloved,  and  much  deferred  to  by  his 
friends,  many  of  whom  were  persons  of 
high  character,  whose  regard  he  always 
retained,  despite  the  faults  and  vices  of 
his  later  life. 

Aaron  Burr,  like  other  young  men, 
was  keenly  alive  to  the  mutterings  of 
revolution  which  now  began  to  be 
heard  5  and  during  the  summer  of  1774 
his  studies  were  altogether  in  military 
science  and  history.  In  the  same  sum 
mer  a  youth  still  younger  —  a  stripling 


AAEON  BUBB  15 

of  seventeen — made  an  impromptu  pa 
triotic  address  which  caught  the  ears  of 
a  public  meeting  in  New  York.  This 
was  Alexander  Hamilton. 


II. 

BURR'S  genius  was  essentially  mili 
tary.  He  was  born,  not  for  thought,  but 
for  action  ;  and  he  had  that  imperturb 
able  coolness,  that  absolute  firmness  of 
nerve  and  presence  of  mind,  despite  the 
most  trying  circumstances,  which  distin 
guished  Napoleon  and  General  Grant. 
His  courage  had  no  flaw,  and  a  habit  of 
command  was  natural  to  him.  It  was  a 
military  age.  The  echoes  of  the  old 
French  War  had  not  died  away,  and  the 
throb  of  the  coming  struggle  was  already 
perceptible. 

On  April  19,  1775,  occurred  the  battle 
of  Lexington,  which,  according  to  a 
common  saying  in  Massachusetts,  was 
fought  at  Concord  by  men  from  Acton. 
In  fact,  it  raged  from  Lexington  to 
Concord,  and  was  participated  in  by 
minute- men  from  all  the  neighboring 
towns.  As  soon  as  news  of  this  fight 
was  received  at  Litchfield,  Burr  wrote 


AABOF  BTJEE  17 

to  his  most  intimate  friend,  Matthias 
Ogden  of  New  Jersey,  urging  him  to 
come  on  and  join  the  army  ;  but  Ogden 
was  unable  to  leave  home  at  that  time, 
and  Burr  restrained  his  impatience  till 
news  came  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
Burr  then  set  off  immediately  for 
Elizabeth  town  to  assist  Ogden  in  his 
preparations,  and  in  July  the  two 
young  men  joined  Washington's  army 
at  Cambridge.  Burr  was  now  but 
nineteen  years  old,  and  a  mere  boy  in 
appearance. 

The  gathering  at  Cambridge  was 
less  an  army  than  a  mob  of  seventeen 
thousand  men,  half -armed,  ill -clad,  and 
undisciplined.  The  officers  were,  for 
th£  most  part,  either  ignorant  of  their 
duty  or  else  reluctant  to  give  offence  by 
performing  it ;  and  there  was  among 
them  a  continual  bickering  about  rank, 
increased  by  the  jealousy  which  pre 
vailed  between  men  of  different  States 
and  of  different  cliques.  As  yet  Burr 


18  AAEON  BUEE 

was  attached  to  no  particular  corps.  He 
mingled  indiscriminately  with  conflict 
ing  factions,  until,  disgusted  with  the 
daily  scene,  he  fell  ill  of  a  nervous  fever. 
In  this  situation  he  overheard  one  day 
his  friend  Ogden  talking  in  the  next 
room  with  some  other  young  men  about 
an  expedition  which  was  soon  to  take 
place.  He  called  Ogden  to  his  bedside, 
and  inquired  of  what  expedition  they 
were  speaking.  Ogden  told  him  that 
Colonel  Benedict  Arnold,  with  a  force  of 
ten  or  twelve  hundred  men,  was  about 
to  proceed  through  the  wilderness  of 
Maine  and  Canada  for  the  purpose  of 
attacking  Quebec.  Burr  thereupon  rose 
up  in  bed,  declaring  that  he  would  join 
the  expedition ;  and,  though  much  en* 
feebled,  he  began  at  once  to  put  on  his 
clothes,  despite  the  [expostulations  of 
Ogden  and  the  others.  He  set  about  his 
arrangements  immediately  5  and  on  Sep 
tember  14,  with  four  or  five  associates 
whom  he  had  selected,  he  shouldered 


AAEOK  BUEE  19 

his  musket,  and  started  for  Newbury- 
port,  about  fifty  miles  from  Boston, 
whence  the  expedition  was  to  sail  for 
the  Kennebec  Eiver.  Ogden  and  some 
others  made  the  same  journey  in  car 
riages. 

At  Newburyport  young  Burr  re 
ceived  a  shower  of  letters  from  his 
friends  and  relatives,  entreating  him  not 
to  join  the  expedition.  Dr.  James 
Coggswell,  in  particular,  assured  Burr 
in  the  most  vehement  manner  that  he 
would  inevitably  die  in  the  undertak 
ing.  His  uncle  Timothy  Edwards  sent  a 
special  messenger,  armed  with  a  letter, 
and  with  instructions  to  bring  the  young 
fugitive  back,  by  force  if  necessary. 
Having  read  the  letter  and  listened  to 
the  message,  Burr  calmly  said  to  the 
messenger  :  "  How  do  you  expect  to  take 
me  back  ?  If  you  were  to  make  a  for 
cible  attempt  upon  me,  I  would  have 
you  hung  up  in  ten  minutes. "  There 
upon  the  messenger  produced  a  second 


20  AAEON   BUEE 

letter  from  Timothy  Edwards,  and  with 
it  a  small  bag  of  gold.  This  second 
letter  was  couched  in  the  most  affection 
ate  language.  It  depicted  the  sufferings 
which  Burr  must  endure  if  he  accom 
panied  the  expedition  to  Quebec,  and 
earnestly  begged  him  to  abandon  the 
attempt.  Burr  is  said  to  have  been 
affected  to  tears,  and  he  wrote  a  respect 
ful  reply. 

About  September  20  the  troops,  to  the 
number  of  eleven  hundred,  embarked 
in  eleven  transports,  and  sailed  without 
accident  to  the  mouth  of  the  Kennebec. 
There  they  found  provided  for  them 
two  hundred  light  bateaux,  in  which 
they  ascended  that  beautiful  river  ;  and 
in  a  few  days  they  left  behind  them  the 
last  outpost  of  civilization.  Thence  by 
the  upper  Kennebec,  and  by  numerous 
connecting  streams  and  lakes,  usually 
separated  by  a  " carry,77  the  army  made 
its  toilsome  way  through  the  wilderness. 
Thirty  times  or  more  the  boats  with  all 


AAEON   BUEE  21 

their  contents  —  ammunition,  provisions, 
and  sick  men  —  had  to  be  carried  from 
one  water  to  another,  over  hills  and 
across  marshes ;  and,  when  the  bateaux 
were  finally  launched  in  Dead  Eiver, 
many  of  them  were  wrecked,  and  half 
the  store  of  provisions  was  lost.  In  a 
few  days  more  the  soldiers  were  reduced 
to  living  upon  dogs  or  reptiles,  and  at 
length  to  devouring  the  leather  of  their 
shoes  and  cartridge  boxes,  and  anything 
else,  however  loathsome,  which  con 
tained  the  smallest  nutriment.  It  was 
fifty  days  after  leaving  Newburyport 
before  Arnold  saw  the  heights  of  Quebec. 
The  distance  travelled  was  about  six 
hundred  miles,  and  more  than  h«J£  the 
force  was  lost  by  disease  and  desertion. 

During  the  first  part  of  the  journey 
the  weather  was  pleasant  and  provisions 
were  abundant,  so  that  Burr  had  fully 
recovered  his  health  and  strength  before 
the  cold  autumnal  rains  set  in  and  before 
the  rations  were  reduced.  Moreover, 


22  AAEON  BUEE 

the  habit  which  he  had  acquired  in 
college  of  living  upon  a  small  quantity 
of  food  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  this 
time  of  privation.  Contrary  to  the  im 
pression  of  his  friend,  Dr.  Coggswell, 
Burr's  nervous  constitution  and  slight 
but  well-made  body  were  peculiarly  fit 
for  the  endurance  of  fatigue ;  and  his 
skill  as  a  helmsman,  his  courage,  lively 
spirit,  and  enthusiasm  rendered  him  a 
favorite  in  the  command.  In  after  years 
it  was  hard  to  make  any  one  think  ill  of 
Aaron  Burr  who  had  served  with  him  in 
the  wilderness  under  Benedict  Arnold. 

It  was  necessary  that  Arnold  should 
announce  his  arrival  to  General  Mont 
gomery  at  Montreal,  and  Burr  was  se 
lected  for  this  dangerous  and  difficult 
duty.  Knowing  that  the  French  popu 
lation,  and  their  clergy  in  particular, 
had  never  become  reconciled  to  British 
rule,  Burr  disguised  himself  as  a  priest, 
and  proceeded  to  the  house  of  a  learned 
father,  with  whom  he  communicated  by 


AAEOlsT  BUEE  23 

means  of  Latin.  A  few  minutes'  con 
versation  showed  him  that  it  would  be 
safe  to  reveal  his  true  character  and  to 
ask  for  assistance.  The  priest,  taking 
him  to  be  a  mere  boy,  at  first  en 
deavored  to  dissuade  him  from  under 
taking  a  journey  so  hazardous  and  so 
long.  Montreal  was  distant  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty  miles.  Finding,  how 
ever,  that  the  stripling  was  determined, 
the  good  father  gave  him  a  guide  and  a 
rude  carriage;  and,  after  some  difficul 
ties,  Burr  reached  his  destination. 
Montgomery  was  so  pleased  with  him 
and  with  his  conduct  that  he  gave  Burr 
a  position  upon  his  staff,  with  the  rank 
of  captain. 

It  was  now  near  the  end  of  November. 
The  ground  was  covered  with  snow,  and 
the  Canadian  winter  had  begun.  Mont 
gomery  put  himself  at  the  head  of  three 
hundred  men,  and,  marching  through 
a  succession  of  blinding  snow-storms, 
joined  the  little  army  of  Arnold,  already 


24  AAKON  BUBB 

shivering  under  the  heights  of  Quebec. 
There  were  some  delays  and  some 
changes  of  plan,  and  in  the  mean  time 
the  soldiers  suffered  greatly  from  cold 
and  from  small-pox.  By  December  20th 
the  preparations  were  completed,  and  it 
was  settled  that  the  attack  should  take 
place  on  the  first  night  when  a  snow 
storm  prevailed.  Night  after  night  the 
moon  shone  clear  on  the  lofty  citadel  of 
Quebec,  and  never  clearer  than  on  the 
last  evening  of  the  year  1775.  But 
about  midnight  the  sky  became  over 
cast,  and  soon  afterward  there  set  in  a 
north-east  snow-storm  of  unusual  vio 
lence.  Montgomery  was  aroused.  He 
ordered  his  men  into  line  ;  and  by  two 
o'clock  the  whole  force  —  the  leading 
column  commanded  by  Montgomery 
himself,  with  Burr  at  his  side  —  was  in 
motion. 

The  outworks  consisted  of  two  lines  of 
barricades  —  which  were  easily  removed 
—  and  a  block-house  defended  by  can- 


AAEON   BUEE  25 

non  loaded  with  grape-shot.  The  sen 
tries  fled  to  the  block-house,  and  com 
municated  their  terror  to  the  sailors  and 
militia  men  stationed  there,  so  that  the 
whole  party  abandoned  the  place  in  a 
panic.  This,  unfortunately,  was  not 
known  to  the  Americans ;  and  Mont 
gomery  waited  until  about  two  hundred 
of  his  men  had  contrived  to  scramble  up 
the  ice-encumbered  hill.  Then  the  col 
umn  advanced ;  but  at  that  very  moment 
a  sailor  who  had  fled  from  his  post  vent 
ured  back  to  the  block-house.  Seeing 
the  Americans  approaching,  he  turned 
to  run  away  again  ;  but,  as  he  turned, 
he  performed  an  act  which  decided  the 
fortunes  of  the  day,  and  gave  Canada 
back  to  Great  Britain.  He  touched  off 
one  of  the  grape- charged  cannon.  Mont 
gomery  fell  dead,  and  so  did  every  other 
man  who  marched  in  front  of  the  column 
except  Burr  and  the  guide.  The  day 
was  just  dawning,  and  the  soldiers  were 
soon  aware  of  the  catastrophe.  The  com- 


26  AAEON  BTJEE 

mand  fell  into  incompetent  hands.  There 
were  hesitation,  wavering,  and  consulta 
tion,  and  finally  a  determination  to  fall 
back,  although  Burr  was  vehement  al 
most  to  the  point  of  mutiny  in  urging  an 
advance. 

The  enemy  now  returned  in  force,  and 
the  retreat  soon  became  a  disorderly 
flight.  Then  occurred  a  classic  incident. 
Burr,  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  shoul 
dered  the  dead  body  of  his  general,  a 
very  tall  man  ;  and,  staggering  under  the 
burden,  ran  down  the  gorge  with  the 
enemy  only  forty  paces  behind,  until,  to 
avoid  capture,  he  was  compelled  at  last 
to  drop  the  body  and  hasten  after  the  re 
treating  troops.  This  act  was  witnessed 
by  Burr's  college  friend,  Samuel  Spring, 
who  was  chaplain  of  the  army.  From 
that  hour  Burr  never  saw  him  until  they 
met,  fifty  years  later,  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  They  would  not  have  met  then, 
had  Mr.  Spring's  son  been  able  to  pre 
vent  it  5  for  he  warned  his  father  that  he 


AAEON  BUKK  27 

would  inevitably  lose  caste  by  visiting 
Ms  former  friend.  The  old  gentleman, 
however,  replied  that  the  image  of  little 
Burr,  staggering  through  the  snow  under 
the  weight  of  Montgomery's  body,  was 
too  vivid  in  his  mind  for  him  to  follow 
the  politic  advice  of  his  son;  and  the 
visit  was  paid. 

The  death  of  Montgomery  left  Arnold 
in  command  of  the  whole  American 
force,  and  he  immediately  appointed 
Burr  his  brigade  major.  In  the  spring 
the  army  was  compelled  to  retreat  to 
Montreal  5  and  Burr,  having  become  dis 
gusted  with  Arnold,  determined  to  leave 
him.  Arnold  strongly  objected ;  but 
Burr  replied  in  his  usual  suave  manner, 
"  Sir,  I  have  a  boat  in  readiness,  I  have 
employed  four  discharged  soldiers  to  row 
me,  and  I  start  from  Crow  Point  at  six 
o7  clock  to-morrow  morning. ' ?  And  start 
he  did,  although  Arnold  was  on  hand  in 
the  morning,  and  endeavored  to  prevent 
him,  first  by  commands  and  then  by  en- 


28  AAEON  BUBK 

treaties.  Arnold,  though  a  madman  in 
battle,  is  said  to  have  been  lazy  and  self- 
indulgent  in  camp ;  and  no  doubt  he 
profited  by  Burr's  activity  and  skill  as 
an  executive  officer. 

Burr's  reputation  had  preceded  him  ; 
and  upon  his  arrival  home  he  found  a 
letter  from  his  friend  Ogden,  who  had 
returned  to  New  Jersey  after  the  repulse 
at  Quebec,  which  informed  Burr  that  he 
had  been  appointed  to  the  staff  of  General 
Washington.  Ogden  mentions  incident 
ally  that  he  had  sold  Burr's  horse  and 
spent  the  money, —  a  kind  of  proceeding 
which  Burr  (such  were  his  generosity 
and  evenness  of  temper)  never  resented. 

Burr's  stay  in  the  family  of  Washing 
ton  was  short.  The  youthful  aide- de 
camp  failed  to  appreciate  the  slow  but 
solid  sense  of  the  general,  and  the  clerkly 
duties  which  he  was  called  upon  to  p^r- 
form  were  extremely  irksome  to  him.  In 
July  of  this  year  he  gladly  accepted  an 
appointment  upon  the  staff  of  General 
Putnam. 


AABON   BUKB  29 

Washington's  distrust  of  Burr  origi 
nated  at  this  time,  but  whether  it  arose 
from  any  special  act  or  was  founded  upon 
instinctive  repugnance  is  not  known. 
At  all  events,  in  this  case  as  in  others 
Washington  did  not  allow  his  personal 
feeling  to  interfere  with  his  selection  of 
public  officers.  More  than  once  in  the 
succeeding  years  he  chose  Burr  for  posts 
of  special  danger  and  difficulty. 

Hamilton  also,  it  will  be  remembered, 
closed  his  career  as  Washington's  aide- 
de-camp  with  angry  words  ;  and  so  strong 
was  the  feeling  between  him  and  the 
commander-in-chief  that,  when  he  was 
afterward  appointed  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  Hamilton  remarked  to  a  friend 
that  he  should  have  expected  rather  to 
be  chosen  as  a  papal  nuncio  than  to  re 
ceive  a  seat  in  the  cabinet  of  Washington. 


III. 

SEPTEMBER  fifteenth,  1776,  the  Brit 
ish  descended  upon  Manhattan  Island, 
and  the  American  army  fled  to  Harlem. 
Burr  was  in  the  rear ;  and,  passing  by 
what  is  now  Grand  Street,  he  came  upon 
a  small  turf  fort,  in  which  General  Knox 
with  his  brigade,  left  behind  by  some  ac 
cident,  had  taken  refuge.  The  British 
had  landed  nearly  four  miles  above  the 
battery,  and  General  Knox  supposed 
them  to  be  in  possession  of  the  whole 
upper  part  of  the  island.  Burr  endeav 
ored  to  convince  him  that  there  was  yet 
time  to  escape  ;  and  he  pointed  out  that 
the  fort  was  not  bomb-proof,  and  con 
tained  neither  provisions  nor  water. 
General  Knox,  however,  declared  that 
to  attempt  a  retreat  would  be  madness ; 
and  he  refused  to  stir. 

By  this  time  the  officers  of  the  brigade 
had  gathered  round,  and  Burr  addressed 
himself  to  them.  He  declared  that,  if 


AAEON  BUEE  31 

they  remained  where  they  were,  they 
would  all  be  prisoners  before  night  or 
hung  like  dogs  ;  that  it  was  better  for 
half  the  corps  to  fall  fighting  its  way  out 
than  for  all  to  be  taken  and  rot  in  a 
dungeon.  He  added  that  he  knew  the 
roads  of  the  island  perfectly,  and  would 
lead  them  safely  to  the  main  body  of  the 
army  if  they  would  follow  him.  Offi 
cers  and  men  agreed ;  and  they  marched 
out,  Burr  riding  in  advance  and  return 
ing  at  intervals  to  reassure  the  terrified 
troops.  They  met  with  some  difficulties  ; 
and  at  one  point  Burr,  followed  by  a  few 
horsemen,  attacked  and  dispersed  an  ad 
vance  guard  of  the  British.  Finally,  he 
succeeded  in  bringing  the  brigade  to  the 
main  body  of  the  army,  with  the  loss  of 
a  few  stragglers  only.  This  feat  became 
the  talk  of  the  army  5  but  it  was  not  even 
mentioned  in  the  despatches  of  the  com 
mander  -  in  -  chief, —  an  omission  which 
Burr  always  regarded  as  an  intentional 
slight. 


32  AAEON  BUEE 

While  Burr  was  with.  General  Putnam, 
there  was  for  a  short  time  another  mem 
ber  of  the  general's  official  family  with 
whom  Burr's  name  has  been  connected. 
This  was  Margaret  Moncrieffe,  the  daugh 
ter  of  a  major  in  the  British  army,  who 
was  stationed  with  his  regiment  on  Staten 
Island.  She  was  a  beautiful  girl  of  four 
teen  with  an  emotional  nature.  It  was 
inevitable  that  a  love  affair  should  spring 
up  between  her  and  the  handsome  young 
aide-de-camp,  and  it  has  been  a  question 
somewhat  debated  by  Burr's  biographers 
how  far  the  affair  was  carried. 

Miss  Moncrieffe  was  regarded  in  the 
light  of  a  prisoner  or  hostage ;  and  she 
was  transferred  from  General  Putnam's 
care  to  that  of  General  Mifflin,  who  was 
stationed  further  inland.  This  change  is 
said  to  have  been  brought  about  by  Burr 
himself.  He  was  looking  over  her  shoul 
der  one  day,  while  she  was  painting  a  bou 
quet  ;  and  the  suspicion  darted  into  his 
mind  that  she  was  using  the  "  language 


AAEON   BUEE  33 

of  flowers 7?  to  convey  intelligence  to  the 
enemy.  It  was  in  her  new  place  of  de 
tention  that  Burr  became  intimate  with 
her.  A  few  months  later  Miss  Moncrieffe 
was  delivered  to  her  friends,  together 
with  the  following  note  from  General 
Putnam:  "Ginerole  Putnam's  compli 
ments  to  Major  Moncrieffe.  Has  made 
him  a  present  of  a  fine  daughter.  If  he 
don't  lick  her,  he  must  send  her  back 
again ;  and  he  will  provide  her  with  a 
fine  good  twig  husband.'7  "  The  sub 
stitution  of  twig  for  Whig  husband/7 
relates  the  heroine,  i  i  served  as  a  fund  of 
entertainment  for  the  whole  company.77 
Miss  Moncrieffe  subsequently  became 
Mrs.  Coghlan  ;  and  later  in  life  she  pub 
lished  a  volume  of  reminiscences,  in 
which  she  speaks  of  Burr  —  not,  of 
course,  naming  him  —  as  "the  con 
queror  of  her  soul.77  "Oh,  may  these 
pages  one  day  meet  the  eye  of  him  who 
subdued  my  virgin  heart,  whom  the  im 
mutable,  unerring  laws  of  Nature  had 


34  AAEON  BUEE 

pointed  out  for  my  husband,  but  whose 
sacred  decree  the  barbarous  customs  of 
society  fatally  violated  ! " 

It  is  evident  that,  whatever  may  have 
been  Burr's  conduct  toward  Margaret 
Moncrieffe,  the  lady  herself,  the  person 
chiefly  concerned,  had  no  complaint  to 
make  of  it.  After  recounting  this  affair, 
Mr.  M.  L.  Davis,  Burr's  literary  execu 
tor,  says:  "It  is  truly  surprising  how 
any  individual  could  have  become  so 
eminent  as  a  soldier,  as  a  statesman, 
and  as  a  professional  man,  who  devoted 
so  much  time  to  the  other  sex  as  was  de 
voted  by  Colonel  Burr.  For  more  than 
half  a  century  of  his  life  they  seemed  to 
absorb  his  whole  thoughts.  His  in 
trigues  were  without  number,  the  sacred 
bonds  of  friendship  were  unhesitatingly 
•  violated  when  they  operated  as  barriers 
to  the  indulgence  of  his  passions.  .  .  . 
In  this  particular  Burr  appears  to  have 
been  unfeeling  and  heartless." 
Such  is  the  estimate  of  Burr's  own 


AAEON  BUEE  35 

friend  and  biographer,  and  yet  it  is 
almost  certainly  exaggerated.  Burr 
was  all  Ms  life  an  excessively  busy, 
hard- working  man  ;  he  was  abstemious 
as  respects  food  and  drink  ;  he  was  re 
fined  and  fastidious  in  all  his  tastes  ;  he 
preserved  his  constitution  almost  un 
impaired  to  a  great  age.  It  is  nearly 
incredible  that  such  a  man  could  have 
been  the  unmitigated  profligate  de 
scribed  by  Mr.  Davis. 

Part  of  Burr's  reputation  for  profli 
gacy  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  that  vanity 
respecting  women  of  which  Davis  him 
self  speaks.  He  never  refused  to  accept 
the  parentage  of  a  child.  "Why  do 
you  allow  this  woman  to  saddle  you 
with  her  child,  when  you  know  you 
are  not  the  father  of  it?"  said  a  friend 
to  him  a  few  months  before  his  death. 
"Sir,"  he  replied,  "when  a  lady  does 
me  the  honor  to  name  me  the  father 
of  her  child,  I  trust  I  shall  always  be 
too  gallant  to  show  myself  ungrateful 


36  AAEON  BUBK 

for  the  favor. "  Burr  certainly  had  a 
code  of  honor  which  he  punctiliously 
observed.  It  was  the  code  of  a  man  of 
the  world,  dashed  with  a  certain  old- 
fashioned  gallantry  which  recalls  Bret 
Harte's  Jack  Hamlin,  and  even  sug 
gests  Colonel  Starbottle.  Both  Hamil 
ton  and  Burr,  the  latter  especially,  were 
far  from  strict  in  their  relations  with 
women ;  and  no  doubt  their  life  in  the 
army,  and  especially  their  association 
with  French  officers,  made  them  fa 
miliar  with  a  standard  of  morals  very 
different  from  that  which  had  prevailed 
in  the  colonies.  Extravagance  was  an 
other  vice  of  the  times.  Hamilton, 
Burr,  and  other  leading  men  were  in  a 
perpetual  state  of  debt  and  insolvency. 

Burr,  though  eager  for  promotion, 
expressed  himself  as  "very  happy  in 
the  esteem  and  entire  confidence  of  my 
good  old  general"  ;  and  he  remained 
with  him  till  July,  1777,  when  he 
was  appointed  lieutenant  colonel,  and 


AAEON  BUBE  37 

placed  in  command  of  a  regiment. 
The  regiment  was  uninstructed  and  un 
disciplined,  and  its  officers  were  mainly 
rich  and  incapable  young  men  from  the 
city.  Burr  took  the  bold  step  of  order 
ing  the  most  inefficient  of  them  home, 
on  the  simple  ground  of  utter  useless- 
ness,  at  the  same  time  declaring  his 
willingness  to  give  them  satisfaction  in 
case  any  felt  himself  aggrieved. 

Before  long  Burr  had  licked  his  regi 
ment  into  shape  ;  and  being  not  only  a 
strict  disciplinarian,  but  also  careful 
and  considerate,  tender  to  the  sick, 
generous  with  his  money,  vigilant  and 
fearless,  he  soon  became  the  idol  of  his 
men.  Not  a  blow  was  struck  in  the 
regiment  while  he  remained  at  the  head 
of  it,  although  corporal  punishment 
was  customary  in  the  Continental  army. 

In  September  of  this  year  (1777) 
Burr  received  intelligence  that  the 
British  had  come  out  of  New  York  and 
were  devastating  Orange  County.  He 


38  AAEON  BUEE 

at  once  put  his  regiment  in  motion  5 
and  by  sunset  he  was  at  Paramus,  six 
teen  miles  distant.  On  the  way  he  had 
been  met  by  an  express  from  General 
Putnam,  recommending  him  to  retreat 
with  the  public  stores.  But  Burr,  de 
claring  that  he  would  never  fly  from 
an  enemy  whom  he  had  not  seen, 
pushed  on.  At  Paramus  he  left  the 
greater  part  of  his  regiment,  and  with 
a  few  picked  men  went  forward  in  the 
darkness.  When  he  came  within  four 
miles  of  Hackensack,  he  learned  that 
the  enemy's  advance  guard  was  barely 
a  mile  distant.  Thereupon  he  halted 
his  men  in  a  wood,  ordering  them  to 
lie  down  and  sleep,  while  he  recon 
noitred  5  for  they  were  exhausted,  hav 
ing  marched  more  than  thirty  miles 
since  noon.  Burr  then,  alone,  crept 
up  to  the  enemy's  pickets,  ascertained 
the  exact  situation  of  each  one,  and,  re 
turning,  awakened  his  men.  He  led 
them  forward  in  such  a  way  that  they 


AAEON  BUEE  39 

were  within  a  few  yards  of  the  picket 
before  their  approach  was  suspected. 
All  of  the  advance  guard  were  killed  or 
captured ;  and  the  enemy  fled  back  to 
New  York  the  next  day,  leaving  the 
greater  part  of  his  booty  behind  him. 
Burr  was  prevented  from  pursuit  by  an 
order  to  join  the  main  army  in  Pennsyl 
vania. 

During  the  terrible  winter  at  Valley 
Forge  the  American  army  was  continu 
ally  harassed  at  night  by  false  alarms 
of  the  enemy's  approach.  These  alarms 
proceeded  from  an  important  pass 
known  as  the  Gulf,  about  ten  miles 
from  the  camp  at  Valley  Forge,  and 
the  only  means  of  access  to  it.  At  last, 
acting  upon  General  McDougalPs  ad 
vice,  General  Washington  withdrew 
from  the  detachment  at  the  Gulf  all 
officers  who  out-ranked  Burr,  leaving 
him  in  command.  Burr  immediately 
began  a  rigid  system  of  police,  visiting 
the  sentinels  every  night  and  at  all 


40  AAEON   BUKB 

hours  of  the  night,  and  often  changing 
their  positions.  During  the  day  he 
employed  the  troops  in  frequent  drills. 
The  rigor  of  this  service  was  not  agree 
able  to  the  militia,  who  had  been  ac 
customed  in  camp  to  a  life  of  idleness ; 
and  the  more  worthless  among  them 
concerted  a  mutiny,  of  which  Burr  one 
evening  received  information.  That 
very  night  he  ordered  out  the  troops, 
having  first  secretly  directed  that  the 
cartridges  should  be  withdrawn  from 
their  muskets.  He  had  also  provided 
himself  with  a  well-sharpened  sabre. 
It  was  a  clear,  cold  night  with  a  bright 
moon ;  and  Burr  marched  along  the 
line,  eying  his  men  closely.  As  he 
came  opposite  the  most  daring  of  the 
ringleaders,  the  man  advanced  a  step, 
and,  levelling  his  musket  at  the  colonel, 
called  out,  "Now  is  your  time,  my 
boys."  Burr  thereupon,  with  a  celerity 
for  which  he  was  remarkable,  smote  the 
arm  of  the  mutineer  above  the  elbow, 


AABOK  BTJEE  41 

and  nearly  severed  it  from  his  body, 
at  the  same  time  ordering  him  to  take 
his  place  in  the  line.  In  a  few  minutes 
the  men  were  dismissed ;  and  the  arm 
of  the  mutineer  was  amputated  the  next 
day.  ~No  more  was  heard  of  the  mu 
tiny;  nor,  while  Burr  remained  in  the 
Gulf,  was  the  army  at  Valley  Forge 
disturbed  by  a  single  nocturnal  alarm. 

At  the  battle  of  Monmouth,  Burr  com 
manded  a  brigade  which,  owing  to  a 
blunder  of  Washington  or  of  a  staff  offi 
cer,  was  for  some  time  exposed  to  a 
murderous  fire.  Burr  had  a  horse  shot 
under  him,  and  his  second  in  command 
was  killed.  This  battle  came  near  be 
ing  fatal  to  Burr  in  another  way.  The 
heat  was  very  great, — it  was  in  the  end 
of  June, — and  Burr  had  been  up  and 
busy  for  two  nights,  the  night  before 
and  the  night  after  the  battle.  On 
the  third  day  he  lay  down  to  sleep 
under  the  shade  of  a  tree,  and  awoke 
to  find  that  he  had  been  exposed  for 


42  AAEON  BUKR 

some  hours  to  the  rays  of  a  burning 
sun.  He  was  in  great  pain,  almost  un 
able  to  walk  ;  and  for  several  years  after 
ward  he  suffered  from  chronic  diarrhoea. 
In  October,  his  health  not  improving, 
Burr  applied  for  leave  of  absence,  stipu 
lating  that  it  should  be  without  pay. 
"Too  great  a  regard  to  malicious  sur 
mises,77  he  wrote  to  Washington,  "and 
a  delicacy,  perhaps  censurable,  might 
otherwise  hurry  me  unnecessarily  into 
service,  to  the  prejudice  of  my  health, 
and  without  any  advantage  to  the  pub 
lic.77  Washington,  however,  replied 
that  such  an  arrangement  was  not  cus 
tomary,  and  would  be  unjust  ;  that  he 
should  have  leave  of  absence,  but  that 
his  pay  must  continue.  And  thereupon 
Burr,  who  was  then  absent  on  short 
leave,  immediately  rejoined  his  regi 
ment  at  West  Point.  He  was  now  but 
twenty-two  years  old,  and  looked  even 
younger.  There  is  a  story  of  a  farmer 
who,  being  ushered  into  his  presence, 


AAEON  BUEE  43 

requested  that  lie  might  see  the  colonel 
himself.  "You,"  he  said,  "must  be,  I 
suppose,  Colonel  Burr's  son." 

In  January,  1779,  Colonel  Burr  was 
placed  in  command  of  the  "lines"  in 
Westchester  County, — a  debatable  land, 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  in  length,  be 
tween  the  American  and  the  British 
frontiers.  The  "lines"  had  been,  ever 
since  the  British  took  New  York,  a 
scene  of  lawlessness  and  misery, —  Whigs 
abusing  Tories,  Tories  Whigs,  the  Brit 
ish  making  continual  forays,  and  the 
Continental  soldiers  plundering  the  in 
habitants,  or  at  least  such  of  them  as 
were  supposed  to  be  disaffected,  with 
out  any  very  strict  inquiry  into  the 
nature  of  their  political  opinions. 

Burr  was  probably  appointed  to  this 
difficult  post  at  the  request  of  that  same 
General  McDougall  who  procured  for 
him  the  command  of  the  Gulf  near 
Valley  Forge,  and  to  whom  he  re 
ported  in  his  new  post.  Burr's  first 


44  AABON  BUKB 

step  was  to  improve  his  position  by 
moving  the  " lines'7  forward  three  miles 
at  one  end.  "By  this  arrangement/7 
he  wrote,  "the  extent  of  my  command 
is  contracted  three  miles,  and  the  dis 
tance  from  my  left  to  the  Sound  is  three 
miles  less  than  before,  the  men  more 
compact  and  the  posts  equidistant  from 
the  enemy.77  At  the  moment  of  as 
suming  command  he  found  that  his 
predecessor  had  arranged  a  scouting 
expedition  to  West  Farms  and  Mor- 
risania.  This,  Burr  thought,  was  very 
ill-advised ;  but,  not  wishing  to  appear 
ungracious,  he  consented  to  an  expedi 
tion  to  Frog7s  Neck,  a  less  distant  point. 
"I  expect  little  from  it,77  he  wrote  to 
General  McDougall,  "but  have  not  so 
much  to  fear.77  The  party  were  gone 
all  night,  returning  in  the  morning 
loaded  down  with  plunder  •  and  hard 
upon  their  heels  came  six  or  seven 
farmers  from  Frog7s  Neck  and  New 
Eochelle  "with  piteous  applications  for 
stolen  goods  and  horses. 7  7 


AAEON  BITER  45 

Burr  was  disgusted  and  chagrined,  but 
it  was  not  long  before  he  had  revolution 
ized  the  management  of  the  ' '  lines. ?  ?  A 
few  nights  after  his  arrival  the  house  of 
a  Tory,  named  Gedney,  was  plundered, 
and  the  family  insulted  by  soldiers  who 
wore  masks.  There  was  no  apparent 
clew  to  their  identity  ;  and  yet  within 
twenty-four  hours  Burr,  by  means  that 
were  never  discovered,  had  detected  the 
offenders.  He  put  them  under  arrest, 
compelled  them  to  apologize  to  Gedney 
and  his  family,  and  to  restore  all  the 
property  that  they  had  stolen.  In  the 
same  week,  on  returning  from  an  inspec 
tion  of  his  outposts,  Burr  said  to  Lieuten 
ant  Drake,  whom  he  had  brought  with 
him  from  his  regiment,  "  Drake,  that 
post  on  the  North  Eiver  will  be  attacked 
before  morning.  Neither  officers  nor  men 
know  anything  of  their  duty.  You  must 
go  and  take  charge  of  it.  Keep  your  eyes 
open,  or  you  will  have  your  throat  cut." 
Drake  went.  The  post  was  attacked  that 


46  AAEON  BUEE 

night  by  a  company  of  horse.  They 
were  repulsed  with  loss,  and  Drake  re 
turned  in  the  morning  with  trophies  of 
war.  "  We  stared,"  said  an  officer  who 
related  these  events,  "and  asked  one  an 
other,  How  could  Burr  know  that !" 

Burr  soon  brought  his  men  under  con 
trol  5  and,  inasmuch  as  he  treated  them 
well,  they  became  reconciled  to  his  se 
vere  discipline.  "He  attended/7  wrote 
one  of  them  long  afterward,  "  to  the  mi 
nutest  article  of  their  comfort, — to  their 
lodgings,  to  their  diet.  For  those  off  duty 
he  invented  sports,  all  tending  to  some 
useful  end.  His  habits  were  a  subject  of 
admiration.  His  diet  was  simple  and 
spare  in  the  extreme.  He  seldom  slept 
more  than  an  hour  at  a  time,  and  that 
without  taking  off  his  clothes,  or  even 
his  boots.  Between  midnight  and  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  accompanied  by 
a  few  horsemen,  he  visited  the  quarters 
of  all  his  captains,  changing  his  route 
from  time  to  time,  to  prevent  notice  of 


AAEON  BTJEE  47 

his  approach.  The  distance  which  he 
thus  rode  every  night  varied  from  sixteen 
to  twenty -four  miles  ;  and  with  the  excep 
tion  of  two  nights,  in  which  he  was  other 
wise  engaged,  he  never  omitted  these  ex 
cursions,  even  in  the  coldest  and  most 
stormy  winter  weather.'7 

Burr  made  a  map  of  the  territory 
between  him  and  the  British,  show 
ing  all  the  roads,  by-paths,  morasses, 
etc. ;  and  he  also  prepared  a  register  of 
all  the  inhabitants  in  the  vicinity,  noting 
against  each  man's  name  his  politics, 
character,  and  other  particulars.  In 
order  to  prevent  the  intrusion  of  spies, 
from  whom  much  evil  had  come,  Burr 
selected  certain  trusty  persons  who  were 
authorized  to  bring  messages  and  peti 
tions  to  him,  all  others  being  forbidden 
to  come  within  a  certain  distance  of 
headquarters.  The  peaceable  inhabi 
tants  were  protected,  robbers  and  horse 
thieves  were  hunted  down,  and  in  every 
engagement  which  he  had  with  the  Brit- 


48  AAEON  BTJRK 

ish  lie  was  successful.  During  the  time 
of  his  command  not  a  single  death  oc 
curred  among  the  soldiers,  not  one  de 
serted,  not  one  was  taken  prisoner. 

Burr's  name  was  revered  in  West- 
chester  County  for  fifty  years ;  and  the 
value  of  his  services  can  be  estimated  by 
what  happened  after  they  were  with 
drawn  in  the  following  spring.  Of  the 
two  commanders  who  succeeded  him, 
both  brave  men  and  experienced  soldiers, 
the  first  was  captured,  and  all  his  men 
except  thirty  were  killed  or  made  pris 
oners.  The  second  was  killed,  and  most 
of  his  officers  and  men  were  either  killed 
or  captured.  Within  a  year  after  Burr's 
departure  the  outposts  were  drawn  in, 
and  the  American  frontier  was  placed 
twenty  miles  in  rear  of  the  line  which  he 
had  successfully  defended. 


IV. 

BURR  left  the  army  in  the  spring  of 
1779,  thoroughly  broken  in  health  ;  and 
yet  within  a  few  months  he  was  twice 
called  upon  to  perform  a  difficult  mili 
tary  service.  In  June  he  was  staying  at 
Newburg  with  General  McDougall.  It 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  for  that 
officer  to  communicate  with  General 
Washington  ;  but  hitherto  he  had  failed 
to  do  so,  all  his  messengers  having  been 
killed  or  captured  by  guards  stationed 
in  the  mountain  passes  for  that  purpose. 
In  this  emergency  he  besought  Burr  to 
undertake  the  dangerous  mission,  and 
Burr  accomplished  it. 

A  month  later,  while  Burr  was  at  New 
Haven  ill  in  bed,  word  came  that  the 
British,  under  Governor  Tryon,  had 
landed  in  the  neighborhood,  and  were 
advancing  upon  the  town.  Burr  arose, 
mounted  a  horse,  and  endeavored  to 
rally  the  militia,  who,  however,  became 


50  AAEON  BUEE 

panic-stricken,  and  fled.  He  then  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  boy-students 
of  Yale  College,  who  had  formed  a  mili 
tary  company ;  and,  marching  out  with 
this  formidable  body,  he  held  the  British 
in  check  until  the  women  and  children 
and  valuables  had  been  removed  to 
places  of  safety.  The  next  day  Burr 
took  to  his  bed  again,  and  remained 
incapable  of  any  exertion  during  the 
succeeding  autumn  and  winter. 

As  soon  as  he  began  to  recover,  Burr 
applied  himself  to  the  law,  hoping  to 
retrieve  his  fortune,  which  had  been 
greatly  impaired  by  expenditures  during 
the  war,  and  by  the  gifts  and  loans 
which,  in  this  as  in  every  other  period 
of  his  life,  he  made  with  reckless  gener 
osity.  In  1781  the  legislature  of  New 
York  passed  a  law  that  no  person  should 
practise  at  the  bar  whose  loyalty  to 
the  American  government  could  not 
be  proved.  This  measure  shut  out  the 
Tory  lawyers,  and  offered  to  the  others 


AAEON  BUEE  51 

an  opportunity  of  which  Burr  was  anx 
ious  to  avail  himself.  In  January,  1782, 
he  applied  at  Albany  for  admission  as 
a  practitioner;  but  the  rules  required 
three  years'  previous  study,  whereas  Burr 
had  studied  only  six  months.  His  ad 
mission  was  therefore  strongly  opposed 
by  certain  prominent  members  of  the 
bar.  Burr,  however,  convinced  the 
judge  then  presiding  that  he  ought,  if 
found  qualified,  to  be  admitted  on  the 
ground  of  his  military  service;  and 
thereupon  he  was  turned  over  to  the 
opposing  lawyers  for  a  verbal  examina 
tion.  This,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was 
made  as  severe  as  possible;  but  Burr 
passed  it  triumphantly,  and  was  licensed 
as  an  attorney. 

In  the  spring  he  took  a  house  in  Al 
bany  ;  and  on  July  2,  1782,  he  was 
married  to  Theodosia  Prevost,  widow  of 
a  major  in  the  British  army,  who  died 
in  the  West  Indies  soon  after  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Eevolutionary  War.  Burr 


52  AAEON  BUBK 

first  met  Mrs.  Prevost  in  1777,  while  he 
was  at  Ramapo  in  command  of  his  regi 
ment,  and  she  was  living  at  Paramus 
with  her  two  small  boys,  her  sister,  Miss 
De  Yisme,  and  their  mother.  These 
ladies  were  of  Swiss  birth.  They  were 
intelligent  and  accomplished,  and  their 
house  was  a  centre  of  attraction. 

The  reader  may  remember  that  in  the 
account  of  Colonel  Burr's  achievements 
on  the  "  lines ??  in  Westchester  County, 
it  was  stated  that  he  was  absent  but  two 
nights  while  he  remained  in  command. 
On  both  occasions  he  made  a  visit  to  the 
house  of  Mrs.  Prevost,  which  was  only 
about  fifteen  miles  from  his  quarters, 
though  the  Hudson  Eiver,  two  miles 
wide  at  that  point,  rolled  between  them. 
On  those  nights  Burr  mounted  a  small 
nimble  horse,  paid  his  usual  visit  to  the 
sentinels  and  outposts,  and  then  gal 
loped  to  the  river,  where  he  had  in 
waiting  a  barge,  well  furnished  with 
buffalo  skins,  and  provided  with  six 


AAEOF   BUKR  53 

trusty  soldiers  to  row  it.  The  horse  was 
thrown,  his  legs  were  bound,  and  he 
was  carefully  deposited  on  the  buffalo 
robes  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  Half 
an  hour's  hard  rowing  brought  them  to 
the  other  side,  where  Burr  remounted, 
and,  after  spending  a  few  hours  with  his 
betrothed,  returned  in  the  same  way, 
revisited  his  sentinels,  and  at  dawn 
threw  himself  upon  a  couch  for  an  hour 
or  two  of  repose. 

Mrs.  Prevost  is  described  as  attractive, 
but  not  beautiful,  well  educated,  literary 
in  her  tastes,  and  possessed  of  charming 
manners.  She  was  older  than  Burr 
and  of  a  delicate  constitution.  Her  dis 
position  was  gentle  and  affectionate. 
Many  years  after  her  death,  Burr  spoke 
of  her  as  "the  best  woman  and  the 
finest  lady  that  he  had  ever  known.'7 
Burr's  letters  to  her,  from  first  to  last, 
express  a  deep  affection  in  terms  which 
have  the  ring  of  sincerity,  although  the 
letters  written  before  their  marriage  are 


54  AAEON   BUEE 

often  amusingly  qualified  by  didactic 
remarks  and  commands  which  in  a 
lover,  and  one  younger  than  his  mistress, 
might  be  thought  strange.  In  Decem 
ber,  1781,  Burr  wrote  every  day  to  Mrs. 
Prevost ;  and  the  following  passages  are 
taken  from  his  letters  during  that 
month  :  — 

"A  sick  headache  this  whole  day. 
I  earned  it  by  eating  last  night  a  hearty 
supper  of  Dutch  sausages,  and  going 
to  bed  immediately  after.  I  thought 
through  the  whole  day  that,  if  you  could 
sit  by  me  and  stroke  my  head  with  your 
little  hand,  it  would  be  well  5  and  that 
when  we  are  formally  united,  far  from 
deeming  a  return  of  the  disorder  un 
mdlheur,  I  should  esteem  it  a  fortunate 
apology  for  a  day  of  luxurious  indul 
gence  which  I  should  not  otherwise  allow 
myself  or  you."  ...  "I  am  surprised 
I  forgot  to  advise  you  to  get  a  Franklin 
fireplace.  They  have  not  the  incon 
venience  of  stoves,  are  warm,  save  wood, 


AAEON  BUBB  55 

and  never  smoke.  ...  It  is  of  the  first 
importance  that  you  suffer  as  little  as 
possible  the  present  winter.  It  may  in 
a  great  measure  determine  your  health 
ever  after.  I  confess  I  have  still  some 
transient  distrusts  that  you  set  so  little 
value  on  your  life.  Bemember,  it  is  not 
yours  alone.  ...  I  demand  one- half  of 
an  hour  every  day  from  you :  more  I 
forbid,  unless  on  special  occasions.  The 
children  will  have  each  their  sheet, 
and  at  the  given  hour  write,  if  but  a 
single  word.  Burr,  at  this  hour,  is  to 
be  a  kind  of  watchword.  .  .  .  You  wrote 
me  too  much.  It  is,  I  confess,  rather 
singular  to  find  fault  with  the  quantity, 
when  matter  and  manner  are  so  delight 
ful.  You  must,  however,  deal  less  in 
sentiments  and  more  in  ideas.  ...  I  do 
not  know  for  what  reason,  Theodosia ; 
but  I  cannot  feel  my  usual  anxiety  about 
your  health,  though  I  know  you  to  be 
ill,  and  dangerously  so.  One  reason  is 
that  I  have  more  belief  in  your  attention 


56  AAEON  BUEE 

to  yourself.  Your  idea  about  the  water 
was  most  delightful.  It  kept  me  awake 
a  whole  night,  and  led  to  a  train  of 
thoughts  and  sensations  which  cannot  be 
described.  ...  I  have  not  these  five 
days  past  slept  more  than  two  hours  a 
night,  and  yet  I  feel  refreshed  and 
well." 

In  1783  Burr  moved  to  New  York, 
having  taken  a  house  there  in  Maiden 
Lane  for  £200  a  year,  "  the  rent  to  begin 
when  the  British  troops  leave  the  city," 
which  happened  in  November. 

The  ensuing  years,  which  Burr  de 
voted  mainly  to  the  law  and  to  his 
family,  were  probably  the  happiest  of 
his  life.  Burr  was  not  a  profound  law 
yer  5  but  he  was  an  extremely  adroit, 
pertinacious,  and  successful  practitioner. 
He  conducted  a  law- suit  as  if  it  were 
a  military  campaign,  with  ambuscades, 
brilliant  sorties,  and  tactics  calculated 
to  mislead  and  overawe  the  enemy.  His 
style  of  speaking  was  concise  and  per- 


AAEON  BUEE  57 

suasive,  and  he  had  a  charm  of  manner 
which  captivated  men  and  women.  Yet 
[jhere  was  perceptible  in  it,  to  persons 
of  discernment,  that  tinge  of  insincerity 
which  lurked  in  his  character.  John 
Quincy  Adams  notes  in  his  diary  that 
"Mr.  Burr  is  a  man  of  very  insinuating 
manners  and  address. 77 

Burr's  fundamental  defect  seems  to 
have  been  a  lack  of  conscience.  He 
possessed  the  sense  of  honor,  but  only 
in  the  slightest  degree  that  of  right  and 
wrong.  Yet  it  was  impossible  not  to 
like  a  man  so  kind,  so  loyal,  so  magnan 
imous  as  Burr;  and  his  perfect  self- 
confidence  and  self-possession  gave  him 
an  extraordinary  power  over  others. 
"It  is  the  man  of  aplomb/7  says  Emer 
son,  "who  carries  the  day.77  Such  a 
man  was  Burr.  It  does  not  appear  that 
he  ever  felt  shame,  much  less  remorse  or 
repentance,  for  any  deed  of  his  life. 
With  him,  to  think  and  to  act  were  al 
most  the  same  thing.  He  never  hesi- 


58  AAEON  BUEE 

tated  over  the  future  or  regretted  the 
past ;  and,  when  all  the  world — a  few 
friends  excepted  —  reviled  him,  he  went 
on  his  way  with  perfect  serenity..  There 
is  something  superb,  one  might  almost 
say  sublime,  in  such  self-reliance  ;  but  it 
would  probably  be  impossible  in  a  good 
man.  There  was  no  Christian  humility 
or  Christian  self- distrust  in  Aaron  Burr. 
This  descendant  of  Puritan  saints  was  as 
true  a  pagan  as  ever  walked  the  streets 
of  Athens  or  of  Eome.  Intellectual 
rather  than  moral  excellence  excited 
his  admiration ;  and  he  valued  people 
and  was  drawn  toward  them  almost  en 
tirely  according  to  their  intelligence  and 
cultivation.  In  fact,  Burr's  whole  con 
ception  of  human  life  was  distorted  by 
the  exaggerated  part  which  he  assigned 
to  education  and  talent  as  compared 
with  conduct  and  character. 

Burr's  character  was  essentially  mas 
culine  ;  but  his  intellect,  so  far  as  the 
two  can  be  separated,  was  of  a  feminine 


(••   J 

AAEON  BUEE  59 

cast.     In  politics,  in  law,  in  life  gen 
erally,  he  was  always  concerned  with  the 
concrete,  the  particular,  the  practical. 
He  had  no  interest  in  the  abstract  or  in 
general  principles,  and  very  little  im 
agination  or  originality.      His  creative 
faculty  was  as  slight  as  his  critical  fac 
ulty  was  large.     It  was  his  forte  not  to 
open  a  discussion,  but  to  close  it.     To 
i  the  material  of  a  discussion,  Burr,  gen- 
j  erally  speaking,  could  contribute  little. 
!  But,  when  all  the  principles  applicable 
ij  to  the  matter  in  hand,  whether  it  were 
|  political  or  legal,  had  been  advanced, 
j  when  all  the  arguments  pro  and  con  had 
been  stated,  Burr  had  a  masterly  power 
of  summing  them  up,  and  deducing  from 
i  them  the  inevitable  conclusions.     It  is  a 
I  notable  fact  that  he  took  no  part  what- 
I  ever  in  the  discussions  in  the  Federalist 
j  and  elsewhere  which  preceded  the  adop- 
|  tion  of  the  Constitution.     It  is  not  even 
j  known  whether  he  sided  with  the  Fed- 
I  eralists  or  with  the  Eepublicans.     And 


60  AAKON  BUKB 

yet  the  two  parties  were  contending, 
with  many  modifications  and  disguises 
and  half  unconsciously,  for  principles 
the  most  radically  opposed, — the  one 
for  self-government,  for  government  by 
the  many,  the  other  for  government  by 
the  few,  the  one  for  local  freedom, 
the  other  for  centralization.  These,  are 
the  fundamental  principles  of  human 
government,  but  they  had  no  interest 
for  Burr.  The  fact  is  significant  both  of 
his  moral  and  intellectual  deficiencies. 

Burr  was  often  pitted  against  Hamil 
ton  in  the  courts,  and  they  divided  be 
tween  them  the  most  important  law 
business  of  the  State.  A  contemporary, 
General  Erastus  Eoot,  thus  compared 
them:  "As  a  lawyer  and  as  a  scholar, 
Burr  was  not  inferior  to  Hamilton.  His 
reasoning  powers  were  at  least  equal. 
Their  modes  of  argument  were  very  dif 
ferent.  Hamilton  was  very  diffuse  and 
wordy.  His  words  were  so  well  chosen, 
and  his  sentences  so  finely  formed  into  a 


AAEON   BUKB  61 

swelling  current,  that  the  hearer  would 
be  captivated.  The  listener  would  ad 
mire,  if  he  was  not  convinced.  Burr's 
arguments  were  generally  methodized 
and  compact.  I  used  to  say  of  them, 
when  they  were  rivals  at  the  bar,  that 
Burr  would  say  as  much  in  half  an  hour 
as  Hamilton  in  two  hours.  Burr  was 
terse  and  convincing,  while  Hamilton 
was  flowing  and  rapturous.  They  were 
much  the  greatest  men  in  this  State,  and 
perhaps  the  greatest  men  in  the  United 
States. " 

Theodosia,  Burr's  only  legitimate 
child,  was  born  in  1783  ;  and  his  family 
life  was  ideal.  March  22,  1784,  his 
wife  writes  to  him:  "My  Aaron  had 
scarce  quitted  the  door  when  I  regretted 
my  passiveness.  Why  did  I  consent  to 
his  departure?  Can  interest  repay  the 
sacrifice?  Can  aught  on  earth  compen 
sate  for  his  presence  ?  .  .  .  Every  breath 
of  wind  whistled  Aaron.  Every  noise 
at  the  door  was  mingled  with  hope  of 


62  AAEON  BtJER 

thy  return  and  fear  of  thy  perseverance, 
when  Brown  arrived  with  the  word  — 
embarked,  the  wind  high,  the  water 
rough.  Heaven  protect  my  Aaron ; 
preserve  him,  restore  him  to  his  adoring 
mistress !"  .  .  . 

And  yet  this  woman  was  not  all  senti 
ment.  Burr  consulted  her  in  his  busi 
ness  affairs,  and  she  assisted  to  manage 
them  in  his  absence.  In  the  same  year 
he  writes  to  her  from  Albany:  "Mr. 
Watts  this  instant  acquainted  me  that  he 
is  just  setting  off  for  New  York.  I  run 
from  court  to  waft  you  a  memorandum 
of  affection.  ...  I  read  your  memoran 
dum  ten  times  a  day,  and  observed  it  as 
religiously  as  ever  a  monk  did  his  devo 
tion.  Yesterday  I  burnt  it.  To  me  it 
seemed  like  sacrilege." 

The  following  are  extracts  from  later 
letters :  — 

"I  have  been  to  twenty  places  to  find 
something  to  please  you,  but  can  see 


AAEON  BUEE  63 

nothing  that  answers  my  wishes.  You 
will  therefore,  I  fear,  only  receive  your 
affectionate  A  BuBE.?? 

...  "I  feel  impatient  and  almost  angry 
that  I  have  received  no  letter  from  you, 
though  I  really  do  not  know  of  any 
opportunity  by  which  you  could  have 
written. " 

"This  morning  came  your  kind,  your 
affectionate,  your  truly  welcome  letter 
of  Monday  evening.  Nothing  in  my 
absence  is  so  flattering  to  me  as  your 
health  and  cheerfulness.  .  .  .  Gloom, 
however  dressed,  however  caused,  is  in 
compatible  with  friendship.  It  is  the 
secret,  the  malignant  foe  of  sentiment 
and  love."  .  .  . 

"The  girls  must  give  me  a  history  of 
their  time  from  morning  to  night ;  the 
boys,  anything  which  interests  them, — 
which,  of  course,  will  interest  me.  Kiss 
for  me  those  who  love  me." 

(The    "girls"    were  Theodosia,    and 


64  AAEON  BUEE 

Natalie,  a  girl  about  the  age  of  Theo- 
dosia,  whom  Burr  and  his  wife  had 
adopted.  The  "boys"  were  Mrs.  Burr's 
sons  by  her  former  husband,  who  were 
always  treated  by  Burr  as  his  own  chil 
dren.  ) 

"I  have  lived  these  three  days  on  the 
letters  I  expected  this  evening,  and  be 
hold  the  stage  without  a  line  !  I  have 
been  through  the  rain  and  dark  and 
mud,  hunting  up  every  passenger  to 
catechize  them  for  letters,  and  can  scarce 
yet  believe  that  I  am  so  totally  for 
gotten." 

From  Mrs.  Burr  :  — 

"  Tell  me,  Aaron,  why  do  I  grow  every 
day  more  tenacious  of  thy  regard  ?  Is  it 
because  each  revolving  day  proves  thee 
more  deserving  ? ?  ? 

From  Aaron  Burr  :  — 

' '  Continue  and  multiply  your  letters 
to  me.  They  are  all  my  solace.  The 


AAECW   BUEE  65 

last  six  are  constantly  within  my  reach.- 
I  read  them  once  a  day  at  least.  Write 
me  of  all  I  have  requested,  and  a  hun 
dred  things  which  I  have  not.  You 
best  know  how  to  please  and  interest 
your  affectionate  ^  BURR." 

These  persons,  be  it  remembered,  had 
been  eight  or  nine  years  married  when 
the  above  letters  were  written.  Mrs. 
Burr,  after  a  long  and  painful  illness, 
died  in  the  spring  of  1794  ;  and  thence 
forward  Theodosia,  the  younger,  served 
as  her  father's  friend  and  confidant. 

Traditions  of  Theodosia' s  beauty  and 
intelligence  still  survive.  Her  father, 
to  whom  from  her  earliest  years  she  was 
passionately  attached,  took  the  greatest 
pains  with  her  education,  especially 
endeavoring  to  make  her  brave,  patient, 
and  industrious.  Burr  has  been  de 
scribed  as  a  voluptuary  ;  and  so  he  was, 
within  limits,  but  he  was  much  more  a 
Stoic.  His  activity  was  incessant;  and 


66  AAEON  BUBB 

he  delighted  in  the  endurance  of  cold 
and  heat,  of  labor  and  fatigue.  Pride 
and  self-reliance  were  the  principles 
which  he  inculcated.  Some  years  after 
his  death,  one  of  his  numerous  proteges 
was  asked  what  in  particular  he  had 
derived  from  Burr.  "He  made  me 
iron,"  was  the  reply. 

After  the  marriage  of  Natalie,  Theo- 
dosia's  companion,  Burr  wrote  to  the 
latter  :  "I  have  had  three  letters  from 
Natalie.  She  is  to  travel  from  Nantz  to 
Paris  (about  two  hundred  and  forty-five 
miles)  with  her  maid  and  postilion  only: 
an  enterprise  which  no  woman  in  France 
under  forty  hath  executed  without  ship 
wreck  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
Yet  Natalie  will  do  it  without  injury 
and  without  suspicion.  I  have  taught 
her  to  rely  on  herself,  and  I  rely  on  her 
pride. " 

How  much  was  expected  from  Theo- 
dosia  in  the  way  of  study  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  following  plan  of  a  journal 


AAEON  BUKK  67 

which  her  father  sent  to  her  in  1793, 
when  she  was  in  her  eleventh  year : 
"  Learned  230  lines,  which  finished 
Horace.  Heigh-ho  for  Terence  and  the 
Greek  Grammar  to-morrow.  Practised 
two  hours, — less  thirty-five  minutes, 
which  I  begged  off.  Hewlet  (drawing- 
master)  did  not  come.  Began  Gibbon 
last  evening.  I  find  he  requires  as  much 
study  and  attention  as  Horace.  So  I 
shall  not  rank  the  reading  of  Mm  among 
amusements.  Skated  an  hour.  Fell 
twenty  times,  and  find  the  advantage 
of  a  hard  head." 

A  year  later  Burr  writes  :  — 

"I  really  think,  my  dear  Theo,  that 
you  will  be  very  soon  beyond  all  ver 
bal  criticism,  and  that  my  whole  atten 
tion  will  be  presently  directed  to  the 
improvement  of  your  style." 

A  month  later  :  — 

"I  have  received  my  dear  Theo's  two 
little,  very  little,  French  letters.  The 
last  left  you  tormented  with  headache 


68  AAEON   BUEE 

and  toothache,  too  much  for  one  poor 
little  girl  to  suffer  at  one  time.  .  .  .  You 
must  fight  them  as  well  as  you  can  till  I 
come,  and  then  I  will  engage  to  keep 
them  at  bay.77 

In  another  letter :  — 

( i  In  case  you  should  dine  in  company 
with  Mrs.  Penn,  I  will  apprise  you  of 
one  circumstance,  by  a  trifling  attention 
to  which  you  may  elevate  yourself  in 
her  esteem.  She  is  a  great  advocate 
for  a  very  plain,  rather  abstemious  diet 
in  children.  Be  careful,  therefore,  to 
eat  of  but  one  dish  (that  a  plain  roast 
or  boiled)  ;  little  or  no  gravy  or  butter, 
and  very  sparingly  of  dessert  or  fruit  j 
not  more  than  half  a  glass  of  wine  5  and, 
if  more  of  anything  to  eat  or  drink  is 
offered,  decline  it.  If  they  ask  for  a 
reason,  papa  thinks  it  not  good  for  me7 
is  the  best  that  can  be  given.77 

This  letter,  so  suggestive  of  Burr7s 
favorite  author,  Lord  Chesterfield,  has 
been  much  and  justly  criticised.  The 


AAEON  BUBB  69 

following  passage,  however,  from  a  suc 
ceeding  letter  is  equally  characteristic  of 
Burr :  — 

"  Eeceive  with  calmness  every  reproof, 
whether  made  kindly  or  unkindly, 
whether  just  or  unjust.  Consider  within 
yourself  whether  there  is  cause  for  it. 
If  it  has  been  groundless  and  unjust, 
nevertheless  bear  it  with  composure  and 
even  with  complacency.  .  .  .  We  must 
learn  to  bear  these  things  5  and  let  me 
tell  you  that  you  will  always  feel  much 
better,  much  happier,  for  having  borne 
with  serenity  the  spleen  of  any  one  than 
if  you  had  returned  spleen  for  spleen. " 

In  another  letter  :  — 

"  Avoid,  forever  avoid,  a  smile  or 
sneer  of  contempt.  Never  even  mimic 
them.  A  frown  of  sullenness  or  discon 
tent  is  but  one  degree  less  hateful.77 

In  1800,  Theodosia  being  then  seven 
teen,  Burr  wrote  to  her  :  — 

"You  reflect,  and  that  is  a  security 
for  your  conduct.  .  .  .  Many  are  sur- 


70  AAEON  BUEE 

prised  that  I  could  repose  in  you  so 
great  a  trust  as  that  of  yourself ;  but  I 
knew  that  you  were  equal  to  it,  and  I  am 
not  deceived." 

A  year  later  Theodosia  was  married 
to  Joseph  Alston,  of  South  Carolina,  a 
youth  of  twenty -two,  well  born,  well 
educated,  rich,  and  of  high  character. 
Mr.  Madison,  who  met  him  shortly  be 
fore  his  marriage,  reported:  "He  ap 
pears  to  be  intelligent,  sound  in  his 
principles,  and  polished  in  his  manner. " 

The  marriage  was  in  all  respects  suit 
able,  and  it  proved  to  be  happy  until 
Theodosia  and  her  little  family  were 
overwhelmed  by  that  evil  fortune  which, 
during  the  latter  half  of  Burr's  career, 
seems  to  have  pursued  him  and  all  who 
belonged  to  him. 


ALTHOUGH,  as  has  been  said,  Burr 
was  never  a  strict  party  man,  his  politi 
cal  principles,  so  far  as  he  had  any, 
were  those  of  the  Whigs,  Eepnblicans  or 
Anti-Federalists,  as  they  were  variously 
called.  Burr's  kindly  disposition  and 
his  practical  turn  of  mind  both  tended 
to  make  him  act  with  the  more  liberal 
and  less  conservative  party.  He  advo 
cated  the  speedy  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  State  of  New  York,  and  he  was  in 
favor  of  opening  to  the  public  the  de 
liberations  of  the  United  States  Senate. 
Burr  became  a  member  of  that  body  in 
1791,  when  he  was  but  thirty-five  years 
old,  being  elected  in  place  of  General 
Philip  Schuyler,  Hamilton's  father-in- 
law,  who  was  the  Federal  candidate. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  republic  the 
State  of  New  York  oscillated  between 
the  two  parties,  as  it  has  oscillated  in 
more  recent  years  between  the  Demo- 


72  AAEOST  BUKK 

cratic  and  Eepublican  (Federal)  par 
ties  ;  and  the  city  of  New  York  had  the 
same  leaning  toward  Democracy  then 
which  it  has  now.  In  1791,  however, 
the  Federalists  had  a  majority  in  the  As 
sembly  ;  and  Burr's  election  was  attrib 
uted  to  his  personal  popularity.  General 
Hamilton  was  an  honorable  man,  but 
aristocratic  and  unpopular.  Hamilton, 
now  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  took  a 
keen  interest  in  the  contest.  It  was, 
indeed,  the  first  battle  in  that  long 
political  struggle  between  Burr  and 
Hamilton,  which  continued  until  their 
final  encounter  on  the  heights  of  Wee- 
hawken. 

In  1792  an  election  was  to  be  had  for 
the  governorship  of  New  York,  an  office 
then  deemed  of  more  dignity  than  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  Burr  was 
discussed  by  each  party  as  a  possible 
candidate, —  a  fact  which  shows  both  his 
great  popularity  in  the  State  and  also 
his  want  of  political  convictions.  Hamil- 


AAEON   BUEE  73 

ton  prevented  Burr's  nomination  by  the 
Federalists,  and  DeWitt  Clinton  was 
nominated  and  elected  by  their  oppo 
nents. 

In  the  same  year  Burr  was  spoken  of 
as  a  candidate  for  the  Yice- Presidency  ; 
and  again  Hamilton  vehemently  opposed 
his  nomination,  describing  him  as  fol 
lows  in  a  letter  to  Eufus  King  :  — 

"  Embarrassed,  as  I  understand,  in  his 
circumstances,  with  an  extravagant  fam 
ily,  bold,  enterprising,  and  intriguing,  I 
am  mistaken  if  it  be  not  his  object  to 
play  the  game  of  confusion  ;  and  I  feel  it 
to  be  a  religious  duty  to  oppose  his 
career.7'  Burr,  however,  made  no  move 
at  this  time  5  and  he  received  but  a  single 
vote  for  the  office  of  Yice- President. 

In  1794,  Washington,  having  deter 
mined  to  recall  Gouverneur  Morris  from 
his  post  as  minister  to  France,  let  it  be 
known  that  he  would  appoint  to  that 
place  any  person  who  might  be  selected 
by  the  Eepublicans  in  Congress.  A  cau- 


74  AAEON   BUKK 

cus  was  thereupon  held,  and,  as  the  re 
sult,  Burr's  name  was  presented  to 
Washington  5  and  it  was  much  urged 
upon  him  by  Madison,  Monroe,  and 
other  leaders  of  the  party.  Washington, 
however,  refused  to  comply  with  their 
request,  stating  that  it  had  been  the  rule 
of  his  public  life  never  to  appoint  to 
office  any  man  of  whose  integrity  he 
had  doubts.  That  Hamilton,  in  whom 
Washington  so  much  confided,  was,  in 
part  at  least,  responsible  for  this  deci 
sion,  was  no  doubt  the  belief  of  Burr  and 
his  friends. 

Burr  served  his  term  in  the  Senate, 
and  acquired  the  reputation  of  an  ex 
tremely  persuasive  orator.  In  1797  he 
was  a  candidate  for  re-election  ;  but  he 
was  defeated  by  his  former  opponent, 
General  Philip  Schuyler.  This  reascend- 
ency  of  the  Federal  party  was  due,  in 
part  at  least,  to  the  excesses  of  the 
French  Eevolution.  At  that  time  this 
country  was  morally  dependent  upon 


__  AAEON  BUEE  75 

Europe  to  an  extent  which,  it  is  now 
difficult  to  realize.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  ideas  which  underlay  the  French 
Eevolution  aroused  the  utmost  enthusi 
asm  among  American  Eepublicans.  A 
distinguished  clergyman  declared  of  the 
patriotic  courtesans  of  Paris  that  "he 
could  have  hugged  the  wicked  sluts, — 
they  pleased  him  ! "  On  the  other  hand, 
the  insane  barbarities  of  the  French 
Eevolutionists  created  a  reaction  in  fa 
vor  of  the  Federalists,  and  against 
those  democratic  ideas  which  had  been 
broached,  but  which  had  not  yet  been 
put  in  practice. 

Hamilton  was  honestly  determined 
that  the  "  crazy  hulk  of  a  constitution," 
as  he  called  it,  should  have  a  fair  trial ; 
but  neither  he  nor  the  other  leading 
Federalists  had  any  faith  in  the  people 
or  any  confidence  in  republican  institu 
tions.  Their  ideal  was  a  constitutional 
monarchy.  The  mildest  term  which 
Hamilton  applied  to  Jefferson  was  "con- 


76  AAKOtf  BUEE 

teniptible  hypocrite77  5  and  it  was  a 
serious  question  in  the  minds  of  other 
leading  Federalists  whether  Jefferson's 
political  principles  or  the  utter  want  of 
principle,  political  or  otherwise,  charged 
against  Burr,  would  be  the  more  danger 
ous  in  a  President  of  the  United  States. 
Bayard,  of  Delaware,  a  very  moderate 
man,  wrote  to  Hamilton,  ' '  There  would 
be  really  cause  to  fear  that  the  govern 
ment  would  not  survive  the  course  of 
moral  and  political  experiments  to  which 
it  would  be  subjected  in  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Jefferson.77  How  oddly  does  this  read 
when  one  remembers  that  the  real  pros 
perity  of  this  country  began  with  Jeffer 
son7  s  administration,  and  that  his  party 
remained  in  power  for  twenty-four  years  ! 
Jefferson  himself  was  hardly  less  preju 
diced.  He  remarked  in  a  private  letter 
that  the  Federalists  would  join  any 
"  enemy,  foreign  or  domestic,  who  could 
rid  them  of  this  hateful  republic  for  any 
other  government  in  exchange.77  Both 


AAEON  BUEE  77 

parties  were  contending  for  fundamental 
principles  ;  and  hence  the  extreme  bitter 
ness  of  feeling,  hence  the  misapprehen 
sion  of  character  and  of  motive,  the  ani 
mosities,  the  false  accusations,  and  the 
duels  of  that  intense  and  stirring  period. 
It  was  the  dying  struggle  of  feudalism 
in  this  country. 

In  1797  Burr,  having  been  defeated 
by  the  Federalists,  as  just  stated,  began 
with  characteristic  promptitude  to  re 
build  the  Eepublican  party  $  and,  as  a 
first  step,  he  procured  his  own  election 
to  the  State  legislature.  General  Schuy- 
ler  wrote  to  Hamilton  at  the  time : 
"Mr.  Burr,  we  are  informed,  will  be  a 
candidate  for  a  seat  in  the  Assembly. 
His  views  it  is  not  difficult  to  appre 
ciate.  They  alarm  me ;  and,  if  he  pre 
vails,  I  apprehend  a  total  change  of 
politics  in  the  next  Assembly,  attended 
with  other  disagreeable  consequences. " 
The  total  change  and  the  disagreeable 
consequences  came  in  due  time,  but  not 


78  AAEON  BUBB 

quite  so  soon  as  General  Schnyler  appre 
hended.  In  the  years  1797  and  1798 
Burr  though  apparently  absorbed  in  law 
and  in  land  speculations,  was  quietly 
and  secretly  laying  the  foundations  of 
future  political  success. 

In  1799  he  was  again  a  member  of  the 
Assembly.  At  this  time  there  were  but 
two  banks  in  the  city  of  JSTew  York, 
both  controlled  by  the  Federalists  j  and 
so  unfairly  were  these  banks  conducted 
that  the  ordinary  commercial  favors 
granted  to  merchants  of  the  Federal 
party  were  withheld  from  those  who 
were  avowed  Eepublicans.  Burr  and 
his  friends  were  determined  to  establish 
a  Eepublican  bank  5  and,  with  this  ob 
ject  in  view,  they  asked  the  Assembly  to 
charter  a  new  company, — the  Manhattan 
Company,— with  a  capital  of  $2,000,000, 
"for  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  city 
of  !N"ew  York  with  pure  water."  In  the 
charter  was  a  clause  providing  that  the 
"  surplus  capital  might  be  employed  in 


AAEON   BUEE  79 

any  way  not  inconsistent  with  the  laws 
and  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or 
of  the  State  of  New  York."  Objection 
was  made  to  this  clause  ;  and  Burr,  it  is 
said,  when  questioned  as  to  the  object 
of  the  charter,  did  not  deny  that  a  bank 
was  contemplated.  But  he  did  not  so 
state  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  and  per 
haps  a  majority  of  the  Assembly  were 
ignorant  of  the  real  object  of  the  bill. 
At  all  events,  the  bill  passed ;  the 
bank  was  established  under  Eepublican 
auspices ;  and  Burr  derived  a  good  deal 
of  odium  from  the  transaction. 

In  the  same  year  Burr  was  accused 
of  dishonorable  conduct  in  respect 
to  the  Holland  Land  Company,  and  he 
fought  a  duel  with  one  of  his  accusers. 
This  charge  appears  to  have  been  en 
tirely  unfounded,  but  Burr  took  no 
pains  to  refute  it.  In  allusion  to  this 
affair,  Mr.  Davis,  his  biographer,  re 
marks  :  "It  was  his  practice  to  let  his 
actions  speak  for  themselves,  and  to  let 


80  AAEON  BUEE 

tlie  world  construe  them  as  they  pleased. 
This  was  a  great  error,  and  was  the 
source  in  after  life  of  much  trouble  and 
suffering  to  him ;  yet  he  would  not  de 
part  from  it." 

Mr.  Davis  here  refers  especially  to  the 
events  of  1800  and  of  1801,  when  a  new 
President  was  to  be  chosen.  John 
Adams  and  Jefferson  were  the  candi 
dates  ;  and  it  was  agreed  on  all  sides 
that  Jefferson  could  not  be  elected  unless 
the  State  of  New  York  should  cast  a 
Eepiiblican  vote,  and  that  the  result 
in  the  State  would  depend  upon  the 
vote  of  the  city.  But  at  the  preced 
ing  State  election  the  thirteen  Assem 
blymen  chosen  from  the  city  of  New 
York  had  all  been  Federalists,  and 
they  were  elected  by  a  large  majority. 
In  the  face  of  these  discouraging  facts, 
Burr  stood  almost  alone  in  declaring 
that  the  city  and  State  of  New  York 
could  be  carried  by  the  Eepublicans; 
and  he  set  out  to  accomplish  the  task. 


AAEOST  BUEE  81 

The  situation  was  a  difficult  and  peculiar 
one.  The  Eepublican  party  in  Few  York 
was  composed  of  three  factions, — the 
faction  of  the  Clintons,  a  strong,  vigorous 
family  of  Scotch  origin,  with  whom  Burr 
had  frequently  come  in  collision ;  that 
of  the  Livingstons,  a  rich  and  powerful 
family,  renegade  Federalists,  with  a  tra 
ditional  hostility  to  the  Clintons;  and, 
finally,  the  Burrites.  These  last  were 
chiefly  young,  high-spirited  men,  de 
votedly  attached  to  their  leader,  and  so 
welded  together  that  they  survived  as  a 
party  in  the  State  for  years  after  Burr 
himself  had  disappeared  from  the  politi 
cal  scene, — the  "  tenth  legion  "  Theo- 
dosia,  the  younger,  called  them. 

It  was  hard  to  reconcile  these  conflict 
ing  elements,  but  Burr's  tact  and  perti 
nacity  succeeded.  At  that  time  the 
Presidential  electors  in  New  York  were 
chosen  by  the  Assembly  ;  and  Burr's 
first  step  was  to  procure  as  nominees  for 
the  Assembly  persons  of  such  reputation 


82  AAEON  BUEE 

and  weight  that  their  mere  names  would 
add  strength  to  the  ticket.  His  list  in 
cluded  George  Clinton,  former  governor 
and  leader  of  the  Clinton  faction,  Brock- 
hoist  Livingston,  head  of  the  Livingston 
family,  Horatio  Gates,  the  popular  Eevo- 
lutionary  general,  and  John  Swartwout, 
an  ardent  Burrite.  The  first  three  flatly 
refused  to  permit  the  use  of  their  names  ; 
and  it  was  only  by  the  utmost  exercise 
of  Burr's  powers  of  persuasion  that  they 
were  finally  induced,  if  not  to  accept,  at 
least  to  refrain  from  declining  the  nomi 
nation.  They  expected  to  be  defeated, 
they  had  no  liking  for  Jefferson,  and 
they  were  jealous  of  one  another.  Clin 
ton  even  reserved  the  right,  which  he 
subsequently  exercised,  of  declaring  that 
he  had  been  nominated  without  his  con 
sent.  A  ticket  of  great  strength  was 
thus  constructed ;  and,  inasmuch  as  the 
candidates  stood  out  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  ordinary  persons  whose  names 
figured  upon  the  Federal  ticket,  the 


AAEON  BUEE  83 

campaign  started    off  with   a  kind    of 
boom  for  the  Eepublicans. 

Burr  and  Hamilton  were  now  again 
pitted  against  each  other,  one  directing 
the  Eepublican  and  the  other  the  Fed 
eral  campaign.  The  polls  were  kept 
open  for  three  days,  and  both  leaders 
were  present.  Frequently  they  met  and 
argued  the  questions  at  stake  in  the  pres 
ence  of  great  crowds  of  people.  * '  Their 
deportment  towards  each  other,"  relates 
Mr.  Davis,  "was  such  as  comported 
with  the  dignity  of  two  of  the  most 
accomplished  and  courtly  gentlemen  of 
the  age  in  which  they  lived."  The 
Eepublicans  prevailed,  and  Burr  re 
ceived  as  his  just  reward  the  nomina 
tion  for  Yice-President.  The  candidates 
were  Adams  and  Pinckney  for  the  Fed 
eralists,  Jefferson  and  Burr  for  the 
Eepublicans.  At  that  time  the  candi 
dates  were  voted  for  separately,  as  if 
they  were  all  nominees  for  the  office  of 
President ;  and  the  electoral  vote  resulted 


84  AABOK  BUKB 

as    follows :     Jefferson,    73 ;    Burr,   73 ; 
Adams,  65  ;  Pinekney,  64 ,  Jay,  1. 

There  was,  consequently,  a  tie  between 
Jefferson  and  Burr  ;  and  the  election  was 
thrown  into  the  House  of  Bepresenta- 
tives.  In  that  House  the  Federalists 
were  in  a  minority.  They  could  not, 
therefore,  elect  Adams  ;  but  it  was  possi 
ble  for  them  to  make  Burr  President 
instead  of  Jefferson,  and  at  first  a 
majority  of  them  were  inclined  to  do 
this.  "They  now,"  wrote  Gouverneur 
Morris  to  Hamilton,  u  seriously  and 
generally,  after  much  advisement,  pre 
fer  that  gentleman  [Burr]  to  Mr.  Jeffer 
son.  They  consider  the  candidates  as 
equal  in  worth  or  (if  you  like  the  other 
mode  of  expression  best)  as  equally  void 
of  it :  with  this  difference,  that  Burr's 
defects  do  not  arise  from  want  of  energy 
and  vigor.  They  believe  that  to  cour 
age  he  joins  generosity,  and  cannot  be 
branded  with  the  charge  of  ingratitude  ; 
but  they  consider  Mr.  Jefferson  as  in- 


AAEON  BUEE  85 

fected  with  all  the  cold-blooded  vices, 
and  as  particularly  dangerous  from  the 
false  principles  of  government  which  he 
has  imbibed. 77 

Hamilton,  however,  protested  vigor 
ously  against  the  selection  of  Burr ;  and 
he  wrote  numerous  letters  upon  the  sub 
ject  to  Morris,  Bayard,  Sedgwick,  and 
others. 

In  these  letters  he  declared  that  Burr, 
"as  true  a  Catiline  as  ever  met  in  mid 
night  conclave/7  would  endeavor,  if 
elected,  to  overturn  the  government  5 
that  he  was  "  bankrupt  beyond  redemp 
tion,  7  7  and  that  he  would  seek  to  retrieve 
his  fortune  through  war  and  disorder. 
"  Daring  and  energy  must  be  allowed 
him  5  but  he  is  far  more  cunning  than 
wise,  far  more  dexterous  than  able.'7 

That  Hamilton  had  an  insight  of 
Burr7s  character  is  proved  by  the  fol 
lowing  statement  which  was  amply  justi 
fied  by  Burr7s  subsequent  career.  "The 
truth  is,77  he  wrote  in  one  letter,  "that 


86  AAEON   BUEE 

Burr  is  a  man  of  a  very  subtile  imagina 
tion,  and  a  mind  of  this  make  is  rarely 
free  from  ingenious  whimsies.  .  .  .  With 
great  apparent  coldness,  he  is  the  most 
sanguine  man  in  the  world.  He  thinks 
everything  possible  to  adventure  and 
perseverance." 

Did  Burr  himself  intrigue  with  the 
Federalists  in  order  that  he,  instead  of 
Jefferson,  might  be  elected  President*? 
His  enemies  accused  him  of  doing  so,  and 
the  belief  that  this  accusation  was  true 
became  so  general  as  to  ruin  Burr's  polit 
ical  career  ;  and  yet  the  evidence  is  almost 
all  the  other  way.  But,  it  is  said,  if 
Burr  was  innocent,  why  was  the  charge 
against  him  so  vigorously  made  and  so 
commonly  believed?  The  answer  is 
that  there  was  an  obvious  conspiracy  be 
tween  the  Clintonians  and  the  Living 
stons  to  destroy  Burr  politically.  George 
Clinton  had  been  Burr's  rival  in  the  con 
test  for  the  nomination  as  Vice- President, 
as  well  as  on  many  former  occasions ;  and 


AAEON  BUEE  87 

Burr  had  excited  the  jealousy  of  both  the 
Clinton  and  Livingston  factions.  The 
fruits  of  this  conspiracy  were  the  scurril 
ous  attacks  of  Cheetham  and  others  upon 
Burr ;  the  expulsion  of  Burr  and  his 
friend,  John  Swartwout,  from  the  direc 
torship  of  the  Manhattan  Bank,  which 
followed  shortly  ;  and  the  total  exclusion 
of  Burr's  followers  from  subordinate  po 
sitions  within  the  gift  of  Clinton,  who 
was  elected  governor  that  year.  This 
explains  the  violence  with  which  the 
charges  were  made.  And  they  were  read 
ily  believed, — first,  because  Burr  had  ac 
quired  a  reputation  for  mystery  and 
intrigue ;  and,  secondly,  because,  in  ac 
cordance  with  his  lifelong  habit,  he 
made  no  attempt  to  confute  or  silence 
his  calumniators. 

There  is  no  evidence  beyond  the  bare 
assertion  of  his  enemies  that  Burr  sought 
election  by  the  Federalists,  and  there  is 
direct  evidence  to  the  contrary.  The 
person  who  put  an  end  to  the  deadlock 


88  AAKCM   BUKB 

in  Congress,  and  procured  the  election  of 
Jefferson,  was  Mr.  Bayard,  of  Delaware, 
Hamilton's  intimate  friend  and  a  lead 
ing  Federalist.  Mr.  Bayard  has  left  an 
account  of  the  transaction.  He  says  that 
at  a  very  early  stage  in  the  proceedings 
he  contrived  to  lay  hold  of  all  the  doubt 
ful  votes,  and  was  thus  in  a  position  to 
turn  the  scale  toward  Burr  or  toward 
Jefferson.  He  was  inclined,  despite 
Hamilton's  protestations,  to  vote  for 
Burr  ;  but  first  he  wished  to  procure  as 
surance  as  to  Burr's  policy  upon  three 
points,  namely  :  (1)  The  support  of  the 
public  credit  ;  (2)  The  maintenance  of 
the  naval  system  ;  (3)  The  retention  of 
subordinate  public  officers.  He  there 
fore  put  himself  in  communication  with 
those  persons  who  were  reputed  to  be 
Burr's  agents  ;  but,  finding  that  they  dis 
claimed  any  knowledge  of  his  intentions 
or  any  authority  to  represent  him,  Mr. 
Bayard  applied  to  General  Samuel  Smith, 
a  friend  of  Jefferson}  General  Smith 


AAEON  BUEE  89 

sounded  Mr.  Jefferson  upon  the  three 
points  just  mentioned.  His  report  was 
satisfactory ;  and  Mr.  Bayard,  the  very 
next  morning  after  receiving  it,  cast  his 
own  vote  for  Jefferson,  and  caused  the 
votes  which  he  controlled  to  be  cast 
likewise,  and  thus  ended  the  contest, 
which  at  one  time  threatened  to  pro 
duce  a  civil  war. 

After  the  election  Mr.  Bayard  wrote 
to  Hamilton  saying  that  Burr  could 
have  been  elected  had  he  taken  any 
steps  to  that  end  5  and  in  a  letter  written 
by  another  member  of  Congress,  Mr. 
Cooper,  while  the  balloting  was  still  in 
progress,  there  is  the  following  state 
ment  :  "All  stand  firm.  Jefferson, 
eight ;  Burr,  six  ;  divided,  two.  Had 
Burr  done  anything  for  himself,  he 
would  long  ere  this  have  been  Presi 
dent.  » 

Further  evidence  might  be  adduced, 
were  it  required,  including  Burr's  own 
written  declaration  at  the  beginning  of 


90  AAEON   BUEE 

the  contest,  to  show  that  Burr,  with  all 
his  faults,  was  innocent  of  the  charge 
which  destroyed  his  reputation  with  the 
American  people. 


VI. 

As  the  end  of  Burr's  term  in  the  Vice- 
President7  s  chair  approached,  it  became 
apparent  that  he  could  not  secure  a 
renomination,  so  completely  had  his 
reputation  been  undermined  by  his 
enemies.  He  applied  to  Mr.  Jefferson 
for  an  appointment  as  foreign  minister, 
and  was  refused.  In  this  situation,  Burr 
and  his  friends  determined  upon  an 
appeal  to  the  people  of  New  York.  In 
1804 the  "regular"  Eepublican nominee 
for  governor  in  that  State  was  Morgan 
Lewis,  a  connection  of  the  Clintons. 
Burr  ran  as  an  independent  candidate. 
The  Federal  party  was  now  so  shattered 
that  it  had  no  candidate  of  its  own,  and 
the  question  was  whether  the  Federalists 
should  vote  for  Lewis  or  Burr.  Burr, 
as  being  much  less  a  partisan,  would 
have  been  their  natural  choice ;  but 
Hamilton  once  again  threw  the  weight 
of  his  great  influence  against  him. 


92  AAEON  BUEE 

"  Hamilton,77  wrote  Burr,  Feb.  16, 1804, 
"is  intriguing  for  any  candidate  who 
can  have  a  chance  of  success  against 
A.  B.  He  would  doubtless  become  the 
advocate  even  of  De  Witt  Clinton  if  he 
should  be  the  opponent. ??  Burr  was 
defeated,  he  receiving  twenty -eight  thou 
sand  votes,  and  Lewis  thirty-five  thou 
sand. 

For  nearly  twenty  years  Burr  and 
Hamilton  had  been  engaged  in  a  politi 
cal  duel,  and  during  all  that  time  Ham 
ilton  had  been  unsparing  in  his  condem 
nation  of  Burr's  character  and  motives. 
It  is  surprising  —  and  it  shows  how  far 
gentlemanly  courtesy  and  self-restraint 
will  go  —  that  the  two  men  had  always 
remained  on  good  terms.  In  the  last 
year  of  his  life  Hamilton  wrote  to  a 
friend  :  "If  there  is  a  man  in  the  world 
I  ought  to  hate,  it  is  Jefferson  ;  with 
Burr  I  have  always  been  personally 
well."  In  the  year  1800,  in  one  of 
those  very  denunciatory  letters  to  his 


AAEOK  BUEE  93 

friend  Bayard,  from  which  extracts  have 
already  been  quoted,  Hamilton  remarked 
that  he  had  "  dined  with  Burr  lately/7 
meaning,  apparently,  that  he  had  dined 
at  Burr's  own  table.  Already  there  had 
been  several  duels  between  Burr's  ad 
herents  and  his  enemies, —  one  in  par 
ticular  between  De  Witt  Clinton  and 
John  Swartwout,  in  which  Swartwout, 
after  being  twice  wounded,  demanded 
that  the  duel  should  still  go  on ;  and  it 
would  have  done  so,  had  not  the  sur 
geons  interfered.  Burr  had  been  taunted 
with  his  tame  submission  to  Hamilton's 
invectives.  It  was  an  age  of  duelling, 
and  both  Burr  and  Hamilton  were 
military  men. 

There  is  a  story  that  Burr  and  his 
henchmen  decided,  in  cold  blood,  that 
Hamilton  must  be  killed  for  political 
reasons  ;  but  there  is  no  proof  of  it,  and 
it  is  not  in  accordance  with  Burr's  char 
acter.  ISTo  man  was  more  careless  or  for 
giving  of  injuries,  none,  perhaps,  so  un- 


94  AAEON  BUEE 

forgiving  of  insults.  Pride  was  the  pre 
dominant  trait  in  his  character.  It  is 
certain  that  Burr  had  already  once,  if 
not  twice,  required  an  explanation  of 
Hamilton.  Burr  so  stated  after  the 
duel,  and  Hamilton  himself  wrote  at 
this  time  that  he  "was  not  conscious 
that  any  charges  which  are  in  circula 
tion,  to  the  prejudice  of  Colonel  Burr, 
have  originated  with  him,  except  one, 
which  may  have  been  so  considered,  and 
which  has  long  since  been  fully  ex 
plained  between  Colonel  Burr  and  him 
self." 

During  the  recent  campaign  there 
had  been  published  a  letter  written  by 
Dr.  C.  D.  Cooper,  containing  the  follow 
ing  paragraphs  :  "General  Hamilton  and 
Judge  Kent  have  declared,  in  substance, 
that  they  looked  upon  Mr.  Burr  to  be  a 
dangerous  man,  and  one  who  ought  not 
to  be  trusted  with  the  reins  of  gov 
ernment.  ...  I  could  detail  to  you  a  still 
more  despicable  opinion  which  General 


AAEON   BUEE  95 

Hamilton  has  expressed  of  Mr.  Burr." 
This  letter  was  no  cause  for  a  duel,  but 
it  furnished  a  sufficient  occasion  for  the 
cause  which  had  preceded  it;  and  on 
June  18,  1804,  Burr  sent  to  Hamilton 
the  following  note  :  — 

"Sir, — I  send  for  your  perusal  a  letter 
signed  Charles  D.  Cooper,  which,  though 
apparently  published  some  time  ago, 
has  but  very  recently  come  to  my  knowl 
edge.  Mr.  Van  Ness,  who  does  me  the 
favor  to  deliver  this,  will  point  out  to 
you  that  clause  of  the  letter  to  which 
I  particularly  request  your  attention. 
You  must  perceive,  sir,  the  necessity  of 
a  prompt  and  unqualified  acknowledg 
ment  or  denial  of  the  use  of  any  expres 
sion  which  would  warrant  the  assertion 
of  Mr.  Cooper.  I  have  the  honor  to  be 
your  obedient  servant, 

A.  BURR." 

This  note  was  carried  by  William  P. 
Van  Ness,  an  acute  lawyer,  an  instru- 


96  AAEON  BUBR 

ment  of  Burr,  who  is  described  as  "  add 
ing  to  the  sleek  glossiness  and  still 
tread,  the  deadly  ferocity  and  power  of 
the  tiger. " 

Hamilton  in  his  answer,  a  long,  ar 
gumentative  document,  declined  to  give 
such  a  reply  as  Burr  required.  "?Tis 
evident,"  he  wrote,  "that  the  phrase 
'  still  more  despicable ?  admits  of  infinite 
shades,  from  very  light  to  very  dark. 
How  am  I  to  judge  of  the  degree  in 
tended  !"  He  also  stated  that,  if  any 
specific  remark  were  attributed  to  him, 
he  would  acknowledge  or  deny  it  5  and  he 
concluded  :  "  I  trust,  on  more  reflection, 
you  will  see  the  matter  in  the  same  light 
with  me.  If  not,  I  can  only  regret  the 
circumstance,  and  must  abide  the  con 
sequences." 

This  last  remark  might  perhaps  have 
been  omitted,  but  in  all  other  respects 
Hamilton's  attitude  throughout  the  whole 
correspondence  was  as  conciliatory  as  his 
self-respect  would  permit. 


AAEOIST  BUEE  97 

Burr,  conscious  of  the  long  provoca 
tion  which  he  had  received,  treated  this 
letter  as  an  attempt  at  evasion.  "I  re 
gret  to  find  in  it,"  he  wrote,  "  no  thing 
of  that  sincerity  and  delicacy  which 
you  profess  to  value.  .  .  .  Your  letter 
has  furnished  me  with  new  reasons  for 
requiring  a  definite  reply. ?  7  Hamilton, 
having  read  this  note,  stated  to  Van 
Ness  that  it  was  not  such  as  he  had 
hoped  to  receive  ;  that,  if  it  were  not 
withdrawn,  he  could  make  no  reply  5  and 
that  Mr.  Burr  must  pursue  such  course  as 
he  deemed  proper.  He  added  that,  if 
Burr  had  asked  him  to  state  exactly  what 
he  had  said  to  Dr.  Cooper,  he  would  have 
answered  frankly,  and  that  he  believed 
the  remark  would  have  been  found  not 
to  exceed  the  proper  limits  of  political 
controversy. 

Upon  the  Saturday  afternoon  follow 
ing,  Hamilton,  having  gone  to  his  coun 
try-seat  near  the  city,  received  a  note 
from  Van  Ness,  inquiring  when  and 


98  AAEON  BUBB 

where  lie  would  receive  a  further  com 
munication  from  Burr.  At  Hamilton's 
request,  his  town  house  was  appointed  as 
the  place  and  the  succeeding  Monday  as 
the  time  ;  and  Hamilton  spent  the  inter 
vening  day  in  the  country  with  his  wife 
and  seven  children.  On  the  Monday, 
Yan  Ness  delivered  orally  a  message 
based  upon  certain  notes  written  out  by 
Burr. 

These  notes  put  Burr's  case  in  a 
stronger  and  truer  light.  "A.  Burr," 
they  began,  "far  from  conceiving  that 
rivalship  authorizes  a  latitude  not  other 
wise  justifiable,  always  feels  greater  del 
icacy  in  such  cases,  and  would  think  it 
meanness  to  speak  of  a  rival  but  in  terms 
of  respect,  to  do  jiistice  to  his  merits,  to 
be  silent  of  his  foibles.  Such  has  inva 
riably  been  his  conduct  toward  Jay, 
Adams,  and  Hamilton,  the  only  three 
who  can  be  supposed  to  have  stood  in 
that  relation  to  him.  He  has  too  much 
reason  to  \  believe  that  in  regard  to 


AAEON  BUEE  99 

Mr.  Hamilton  there  has  been  no  reci 
procity.  For  several  years  his  name  has 
been  lent  to  the  support  of  base  slanders, 
which  he  has  never  had  the  generosity, 
the  magnanimity,  or  the  candor  to  con 
tradict  or  disavow.  Burr  forbears  to  par 
ticularize,  as  it  would  only  tend  to  pro 
duce  new  irritations  ;  but,  having  made 
great  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  harmony, 
having  exercised  forbearance  until  it  ap 
proached  to  humiliation,  he  has  seen  no 
effect  produced  by  such  conduct,  but  a 
repetition  of  injury.  ...  He  is  incapable 
of  revenge,  still  less  is  he  capable  of  imi 
tating  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Hamilton,  by 
committing  secret  depredations  on  his 
fame  and  character.  But  these  things 
must  have  an  end. ?  ? 

Hamilton  now  called  in  the  services  of 
his  friend  Mr.  Pendleton,  and  some  fur 
ther  communications  passed  between  the 
parties.  Burr  required  a  general  dis 
avowal  of  any  intention  by  Hamilton,  in 
any  conversation,  "to  convey  expres- 


100  AAEON  BUEE 

sions  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  Mr. 
Burr." 

This  general  statement,  Hamilton,  of 
course,  was  unable  to  make ;  and  on 
Wednesday,  June  27,  Yan  Ness  delivered 
to  Pendleton  the  challenge.  It  was  ar 
ranged  that  the  meeting  should  not  occur 
until  July  11,  in  order  that  Hamilton 
might  have  time  to  finish  a  law-suit  in 
which  he  was  engaged,  and  also  to  ar 
range  his  private  affairs.  He  seems  to 
have  assumed  from  the  first  that  the  duel 
would  be  fatal  to  him.  Cheetham  — 
Burr's  scurrilous  traducer,  a  tool  of  the 
Clintons  —  declared  after  the  duel  that 
Burr  spent  these  intervening  days  in 
practising  at  a  mark  in  his  garden  ;  and 
the  slander  has  been  repeated  by  one  his 
torian  after  another.  There  is  no  proof 
of  the  charge, — it  was  denied  by  Burr's 
friends  at  the  time,  —  and  there  is  no 
more  reason  to  believe  it  than  to  believe 
that  other  accusation,  made  by  the  same 
man  on  the  same  occasion ;  namely,  that 


AAEON  BUKB      ;       :M1,     ,  >,  ,  , 
Burr  went  to  the  field  wearing  Ja"  'Suit  of 
silk  underclothes,  which,  he  had  heard, 
would  be  efficacious  to  stop  a  bullet. 

The  night  before  the  duel  was  spent  by 
Burr  and  Hamilton  in  arranging  their 
private  papers,  and  in  writing  what 
each  thought  might  be  his  last  words. 
Hamilton  made  a  will,  and  left  a  long 
statement  as  to  his  conduct  and  motives 
in  his  transactions  with  Burr.  In  this 
pathetic  document  the  frankness,  the 
generosity,  and  the  weak  points  of  his 
character  are  alike  apparent.  His  fair 
ness  to  Burr  is  notable.  He  admitted 
that  his  "  animadversions ?  ?  had  "  borne 
very  hard ?  ?  upon  Burr ;  and  he  ex 
pressed  a  hope  that  Burr's  future  career 
would  show  that  Hamilton's  estimate  of 
his  character  had  been  erroneous. 

He  stated  that  he  had  resolved  to 
throw  away  his  first  and  possibly  his 
second  fire.  Finally,  Hamilton  declared 
that  he  was  opposed  in  principle  to 
duelling,  but  that,  nevertheless,  he  would 


102  AllEON  BUEE 

lhe£t  Burr,  because,  should  he  decline  to 
do  so,  his  future  political  usefulness 
would  be  destroyed.  In  other  words, 
he  would  do  a  certain  evil,  in  order  that 
a  possible  good  might  be  obtained. 
This  was  the  fatal  principle,  more  than 
once  acted  upon,  which  marred  Hamil 
ton's  otherwise  honorable  career. 

Burr  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Theodosia, 
requesting  that  she  would  burn  all  of  his 
letters  which  might  injure  any  one; 
that,  in  case  of  his  death,  tokens  of  his 
remembrance  should  be  given  to  his 
stepsons,  to  Natalie,  and  others,  and 
that  provision  should  be  made  for  his 
slaves  and  servants.  The  letter  con 
cluded  with  these  words :  — 

"You  have  completely  satisfied  all 
that  my  heart  and  affections  had  hoped 
or  even  wished.  With  a  little  more  per 
severance,  determination,  and  industry, 
you  will  obtain  all  that  my  ambition 
or  vanity  had  fondly  imagined.  Let 
your  son  have  occasion  to  be  proud 
that  he  had  a  mother.  Adieu,  Adieu. " 


AAEON  BTJKK 

To  her  husband  also  lie  wrote  a  long 
and  characteristic  letter,  especially  en 
treating  him  to  e '  stimulate  and  aid 
Theodosia  in  the  cultivation  of  her 
mind."  He  added  a  characteristic  post 
script  :  "If  you  can  pardon  and  indulge 
a  folly,  I  would  suggest  that  Madame 

,  too  well  known  under  the  name 

of  Leonora,  has  claims  on  my  recollec 
tion.  She  is  now  with  her  husband  at 
St.  Jagoof  Cuba.77 

Not  a  shadow  of  a  misgiving  crossed 
Burr's  mind,  before  or  after  the  duel, 
that  his  conduct  was  in  any  sense  deserv 
ing  of  blame.  Nor  was  it,  according  to 
the  code  which  then  prevailed  ;  and  he 
knew  no  other.  The  code  must  be  both 
Burr's  and  Hamilton's  justification  ;  and 
how  strongly  it  was  intrenched  in  public 
opinion  appears  from  the  following  pas 
sage  in  the  diary  of  Gouverneur  Morris, 
written  two  days  after  the  duel :  "  Clark- 
son  said  to  me  on  Thursday,  'If  we 
were  truly  brave,  we  should  not  accept 


•104.  'AABON   BUEE 

a  challenge  5  but  we  are  all  cowards.7 
There  is  no  braver  man  living  than 
Clarkson,  and  yet  I  doubt  whether  he 
would  so  far  brave  the  public  opinion  as 
to  refuse  a  challenge. "  Late  at  night, 
Burr  threw  himself  upon  a  couch  in  his 
library  ;  and  when  his  faithful  friend, 
John  Swartwout,  entered  the  house  at 
daybreak,  he  found  him  quietly  sleeping. 

Under  the  heights  of  Weekawken,  and 
accessible  only  at  low  tide,  there  was  a 
grassy  ledge  or  shelf,  which  had  been  the 
scene  of  many  encounters.  Here  on 
July  11,  1804,  in  all  the  peaceful  beauty 
and  freshness  of  early  morning  in  mid 
summer,  Burr  and  Hamilton  met.  The 
preliminaries  were  soon  arranged.  As 
Pendleton,  Hamilton's  second,  gave  him 
his  pistol,  he  asked,  * '  Will  you  have  the 
hair-spring  set!"  " Not  this  time,"  was 
the  reply. 

When  the  word  was  given,  Burr  fired. 
Hamilton  started  forward,  with  a  con 
vulsive  movement,  reeled,  involuntarily 


AAEOK  BUEE  105 

discharging  his  pistol,  and  fell  headlong 
upon  the  ground.* 

Burr  sprang  toward  him  with  an  ex 
pression  of  pain  upon  his  face ;  but  Yan 
Ness  seized  him  by  the  arm,  and  hurried 
him  down  the  bank  to  the  boat.  Ham 
ilton,  being  lifted  up,  revived  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  gasped,  "This  is  a  mortal 
wound,  doctor.'7  He  then  relapsed  into 
unconsciousness,  but  was  revived  again 
by  the  fresh  air  of  the  river,  as  they 
brought  him  home.  i '  Pendleton  knows, 7  7 
he  said,  endeavoring  to  turn  toward  his 
friend,  "that  I  did  not  intend  to  fire 
at  him."  As  the  boat  approached  the 
shore,  he  said  :  i i  Let  Mrs.  Hamilton  be 
sent  for  immediately.  Let  the  event  be 
gradually  broken  to  her,  but  give  her 
hopes.77 

He  lingered  in  great  suffering  until 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  fol 
lowing  day. 

*  There  is  some  evidence  that  Hamilton  fired  first. 
See  especially  a  letter  from  Burr  to  Charles  Biddle  first 
published  in  1885  in  Mr.  Biddle's  autobiography. 


106  AAEO^sT  BTJEE 

The  excitement  in  the  city  was  tre 
mendous,  and  the  sorrow  over  Hamilton's 
death  was  almost  exceeded  by  the  indig 
nation  against  Burr.  The  whole  town 
took  part  in  the  funeral,  amidst  the 
booming  of  cannon  and  the  tolling  of 
bells,  and  listened  to  the  eulogy  pro 
nounced  by  Gouverneur  Morris. 

The  death  of  Hamilton  had  something 
of  the  same  effect  in  making  duelling 
odious  which  the  death  of  President 
Garfield  had  in  making  the  spoils  system 
odious.  And  yet,  irrational  as  the  duel 
now  seems,  it  had,  like  every  other  hu 
man  institution  of  long  standing,  its  good 
side.  There  is  not  only  something  heroic, 
but  there  is  something  which  tends  to 
foster  an  heroic  type  of  character,  in  the 
willingness  of  a  man  like  Hamilton  to 
sacrifice  his  life,  and  what  was  far  more 
dear  to  him,  the  interests  of  his  wife,  his 
children,  and  his  friends  to  that  im 
ponderable,  intangible,  invisible  thing, 
that  " breath77  which  " flies  from  you  to 
me,'7 — the  sense  of  honor. 


vn. 

JULY  21,  1804,  "  Aaron  Burr,  Esquire, 
Yice-President  of  the  United  States, ? '  was 
indicted  for  murder  $  and  on  the  same 
day,  at  evening,  he,  with  John  Swart- 
wout,  entered  a  barge  at  Eichmond  Hill, 
and  under  cover  of  the  night  was  con 
veyed  down  the  river.  At  daybreak 
the  boat  grazed  the  lawn  of  Commodore 
Truxton's  residence  at  Perth  Amboy,  in 
New  Jersey ;  and  the  commodore,  who 
was  a  friend  of  both  Hamilton  and  Burr, 
received  Burr  kindly,  and  entertained 
him  till  horses  could  be  procured  to  take 
him  further. 

In  a  long  letter  published  a  few  days 
later  in  the  New  York  likening  Post, 
Commodore  Truxton  said  :  "  During  the 
time  Colonel  Burr  was  with  me,  but  little 
was  said  of  the  duel.  .  .  .  He  appeared  to 
me  to  feel  much  more  sorrow  and  regret 
than  I  have  observed  in  any  other  person 
on  the  occasion,  though  I  have  seen  many 


108  AABON  BTJBR 

who  expressed  unfeigned  regret,  and  I 

was  certain  that  they  felt  it." 

From  New  Jersey  Burr  went  South, 
where,  in  general,  he  was  very  well  re 
ceived.  In  the  mean  time  he  had  been 
indicted  for  murder  in  New  Jersey  also  ; 
and  he  wrote  to  his  daughter :  ' '  You  have 
doubtless  heard  that  there  has  subsisted 
for  some  time  a  contention  of  a  very  sin 
gular  nature  between  the  two  States  of 
New  York  and  New  Jersey.  The  sub 
ject  of  dispute  is,  Which  shall  have  the 
honor  of  hanging  the  Vice-President? " 

Burr  kept  away  from  those  two  States, 
and  in  the  following  winter  resumed  his 
duties  as  Yice- President  at  Washington. 
On  February  4  began  the  famous  trial  in 
the  Senate  of  Judge  Chase,  of  Maryland, 
which  lasted  a  month,  and  was  an  occa 
sion  of  much  form  and  ceremony.  Burr 
won  great  praise  by  his  conduct  of  the 
trial.  "He  presided,"  it  was  said  in  a 
contemporary  account,  "with  the  dig 
nity  and  impartiality  of  an  angel,  but 


AAEON  BUEE  109 

with  the  rigor  of  a  demon."  The  day 
after  the  trial  ended,  his  term  being 
about  to  expire,  Burr  took  leave  of  the 
Senate  ;  and  perhaps  nothing  in  the  ca 
reer  of  this  remarkable  man  is  more  sig 
nificant  of  his  power  than  the  impression 
which  he  produced  upon  that  occasion. 
Most  of  those  who  heard  his  short  ad 
dress  were  his  political  opponents,  not 
a  few  were  his  personal  enemies,  and  yet 
the  effect  of  it  was  prodigious.  Many 
were  in  tears  when  he  concluded,  and 
one  senator  who  was  asked  on  the  fol 
lowing  day,  how  long  the  Yice- President 
spoke,  replied  that  "he  could  form  no 
idea,  it  might  have  been  an  hour,  and  it 
might  have  been  but  a  moment :  when 
he  came  to  his  senses,  he  seemed  to  have 
awakened  as  from  a  kind  of  trance. " 
Burr  himself,  remarking  upon  a  news 
paper  report  of  the  proceedings,  wrote 
to  Theodosia :  — 

"It  is  true  that  I  made  a  talk,  as  was 
decent  and  proper,  to  the  Senate  on  leav- 


110  AAEOK  BUEE 

ing  them  formally.  There  was  notiiing 
written  or  prepared,  except  that  it  had 
been  some  days  on  my  mind  to  say  some 
thing.  It  was  the  solemnity,  the  anxiety, 
the  expectation,  and  the  interest  which  I 
saw  strongly  painted  in  the  countenances 
of  the  auditors  that  inspired  whatever 
was  said.  I  neither  shed  tears  nor  as 
sumed  tenderness,  but  tears  did  flow 
abundantly.  The  story  in  this  news 
paper  is  rather  awkwardly  and  pom 
pously  told." 

March  4,  1805,  two  days  after  Burr's 
leave-taking  in  the  Senate,  Jefferson  en 
tered  upon  his  second  term  as  President ; 
and  George  Clinton,  Burr's  chief  politi 
cal  opponent,  was  sworn  in  as  his  succes 
sor.  Burr  was  now  an  exile  from  New 
York.  His  estate,  Eichmond  Hill,  had 
been  sold  at  a  sacrifice  to  pay  his  debts ; 
and  he  was  without  money  or  occupa 
tion,  but  as  serene  and  self-confident  as 
ever.  He  turned  toward  the  West. 

In  the  West  the  Eepublican  party  pre- 


AAEON  BUEE  111 

dominated,  and  freer  notions  of  duelling 
prevailed  there  than  those  which  were 
beginning  to  obtain  at  the  East.  For 
these  reasons  Burr  was  received  with 
great  honor.  He  left  Philadelphia  on 
horseback  April  10,  1805,  and  reached 
Pittsburg  in  nineteen  days.  Thence  he 
floated  down  the  Ohio  in  a  sort  of 
house -boat,  stopping  a  few  miles  below 
Marietta  (Ohio),  at  the  island  of  Blenner- 
hassett,  which  was  owned  and  occupied 
by  an  eccentric  Irishman  of  that  name. 
Burr  fascinated  both  Blennerhassett  and 
his  wife,  and  they  shared  in  his  subse 
quent  enterprises.  At  Nashville,  Burr 
was  entertained  by  General  Jackson, 
whom  he  described  as  "one  of  those 
frank,  ardent  souls  that  I  love  to  meet." 
At  Fort  Massac,  on  the  Cumberland, 
he  met  General  James  Wilkinson,  then 
in  command  of  our  Western  forces. 
Wilkinson  was  an  old  friend  of  Burr ; 
they  had  been  companions  in  the  expe 
dition  to  Quebec,  and  they  had  eorre- 


112  AAEON  BUEE 

sponded  at  intervals  ever  since.  The 
general  provided  Burr  with  a  barge 
manned  by  soldiers,  and  gave  him  letters 
to  the  chief  citizens  of  New  Orleans.  "I 
hear  so  many  pleasant  things  of  Or 
leans,  "  Burr  wrote  to  Theodosia,  "that 
I  should  certainly  (if  one-half  of  them 
are  verified  on  inspection)  settle  down 
there,  were  it  not  for  Theodosia  and  her 
boy  ;  but  they  will  control  my  fate."  Upon 
his  return  from  New  Orleans,  where  he 
was  entertained  like  a  prince,  Burr  again 
met  "Wilkinson,  who  said  afterward  that 
"Burr  seemed  to  be  revolving  some 
great  project,  the  nature  of  which  he  did 
not  disclose."  It  is  significant,  how 
ever,  that  during  the  following  winter, 
which  Burr  spent  in  Philadelphia,  ma 
turing  his  plans,  Wilkinson  received 
from  Burr  six  letters  in  cipher. 

In  the  spring  Burr  evidently  had 
thoughts  of  relinquishing  his  Western 
designs,  for  he  applied  again  to  Jefferson 
for  i,  foreign  appointment.  The  Presi- 


AAEOST  BUEE  113 

dent  refused  it  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the  pub 
lic.  Burr  took  the  refusal  with  his  ac 
customed  good  nature,  dined  with  the 
President  once  more,  and  in  the  follow 
ing  July  sent  forward  Samuel,  brother 
of  John  Swartwout,  with  letters  in  cipher 
to  General  Wilkinson.  Burr  was  so 
cautious  in  communicating  his  designs, 
and  especially  in  putting  them  upon 
paper,  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly 
what  they  were.  It  is  certain  that  he 
intended  to  establish  a  colony ;  for  he 
had  purchased  a  tract  of  land  compris 
ing  400,000  acres,  far  to  the  south-west, 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Washita,  a  tributary  of  the  Eed 
Eiver.  $5,000  had  been  paid  down,  the 
total  price  being  but  $40,000.  It  is 
estimated  that  Burr  raised,  all  together, 
about  $50,000,  most  of  this  sum  being 
contributed  by  deluded  relatives.  In  a 
letter  Jefferson  speaks  of  Mr.  Alston's 
having  indorsed  Burr's  notes  to  a  large 


114  AAEON  BUBK 

amount.  It  is  certain  also  that  Burr 
intended  to  take  advantage  of  the  West 
ern  hostility  to  the  Spaniards  to  drive 
them  out  of  Mexico  and  to  establish  an 
hereditary  empire  there,  with  himself 
on  the  throne  and  Theodosia's  boy  as 
the  heir  apparent.  It  is  possible  that  he 
expected  to  include  Louisiana  and  some 
of  the  Western  States  in  his  new  domin- 
(l  )  ions.  Mr.  Henry  Adams  cites  a  letter 
written  by  the  British  minister  at  Wash 
ington  to  the  Foreign  Office  at  London, 
in  which  he  states  that  Burr,  whose 
term  as  Vice- President  was  then  about 
to  expire,  had  offered  his  services  to  the 
British  government,  "  particularly  in 
endeavoring  to  effect  a  separation  of  the 
western  part  of  the  United  States  from 
that  which  lies  between  the  Atlantic 
and  the  mountains." 

It  must  be  remembered  in  extenuation 
that  a  division  between  East  and  West 
was  then  considered  probable  and  expe 
dient  by  many  leading  persons. 


AAEON  BUBB  115 

Burr's  schemes  justified  Hamilton's 
analysis, —  that  he  was  "the  most  san- 
jguine  man  in  the  world/'  and  that  "he 
believed  all  things  possible  to  daring 
and  energy ? ' ;  but  they  were  not  quite 
so  mad  as  they  now  seem.  The  coun 
try  was  at  that  time  on  the  verge  of 
war  with  Spain,  and  Burr  only  expected 
to  anticipate  matters  a  little.  Wilkin 
son,  being  in  command  on  the  border, 
had  it  in  his  power  to  precipitate  a  war  ; 
and  this  apparently  is  what  Burr  ex 
pected  him  to  do.  Among  the  papers 
which  Samuel  Swartwout  carried  to  "Wil 
kinson  from  Burr  was  the  following  let 
ter  to  Wilkinson  from  Burr's  associate, 
Mr.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey  : 

"Dear  Sir, — It  is  now  well  ascertained 
that  you  are  to  be  displaced  in  next  ses 
sion.  Jefferson  will  affect  to  yield  re 
luctantly  to  the  public  sentiment,  but 
yield  he  will.  Prepare  yourself,  there 
fore,  for  it.  You  are  not  a  man  to  de- 


116  AAEON  BTJEE 

spair  .  .  .  when  such  projects  offer  in 
another  quarter.  Are  you  ready  ?  Are 
your  associates  ready?  Wealth  and 
glory,  Louisiana  and  Mexico  ! " 

Wilkinson  has  left  three  huge  volumes 
of  memoirs,  which  show  him  to  have 
been  a  vain,  shallow,  bragging,  egotisti 
cal  man  ;  and,  if  he  ever  intended  to  be 
come  a  conspirator  with  Burr,  he  must 
have  changed  his  mind,  for  upon  the 
receipt  of  Burr's  communications  he 
sent  a  message  to  the  President  inform 
ing  him  of  Burr's  designs.  Wilkinson 
then  patched  up  a  hasty  agreement  with 
the  Spaniards,  fortified  New  Orleans, 
proclaimed  martial  law,,  and  posed  as 
the  savior  of  his  country.  Burr,  never  a 
good  judge  of  character,  had  mistaken 
his  man.  He  made  other  similar  mis 
takes  ;  for  he  sought  assistance  in  his  il 
legal,  and  perhaps  traitorous,  schemes 
from  several  high  officers  of  the  army 
and  navy,  Commodore  Truxton  and 


AAEON  BUEE  117 

General  Eaton  in  particular,  who  had 
grievances  against  the  government. 

Meanwhile,  ignorant  of  Wilkinson's 
course,  Burr  was  travelling  slowly  down 
the  Ohio,  giving  out  that  his  expedition 
had  received  the  secret  approval  of  the 
government,  and  collecting  recruits  at 
every  stopping-place.  Boats  and  sup 
plies  were  purchased  and  contracted  for ; 
and  Mr.  Alston,  Theodosia,  Blennerhas- 
sett  and  his  wife,  were  all  busy  with 
preparations.  The  whole  Western  coun 
try  was  now  full  of  rumors  as  to  Burr's 
intentions ;  and  at  Frankfort,  in  Ken 
tucky,  the  district  attorney  procured 
his  arrest  on  the  charge  of  conspiring  to 
injure  a  foreign  power  with  which  the 
United  States  were  at  peace.  A  long 
and  exciting  trial  followed,  in  which  the 
accused  was  defended  by  Henry  Clay, 
and  Burr  himself  made  an  eloquent  ad 
dress  to  the  court.  The  result  was  a  tri 
umphal  acquittal,  which  the  people  of 
Frankfort  celebrated  by  a  grand  ball. 


118  AAEON  BTJKB 

From  Frankfort,  Burr  went  back  to 
Nashville,  and  thence,  with  about  sixty 
men,  dropped  down  the  river  to  Bayou 
Pierre,  thirty  miles  above  Natchez.  But 
by  this  time  the  President's  proclama 
tion  against  Burr  had  reached  the  scene. 
There  was  another  arrest,  followed  by 
another  trial,  at  which  Burr's  eloquence 
procured  a  second  acquittal.  But  the 
game  was  now  plainly  lost.  Further 
legal  proceedings  were  set  on  foot  5  and 
Burr,  abandoning  his  companions,  dis 
guised  himself  as  a  boatman,  crossed  to 
the  eastern  side  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
disappeared  in  the  wilderness. 

A  few  weeks  later,  on  a  cold  evening 
in  February,  two  young  lawyers,  one  of 
whom  was  named  Perkins,  were  playing 
backgammon  in  a  cabin  of  the  village 
of  Wakefield,  in  Washington  County, 
Alabama.  About  ten  o'clock  they 
heard  the  tramp  of  horses  ;  and,  going 
to  the  door,  they  found  two  travellers  on 
horseback,  one  of  whom,  from  his  dis- 


AAEON  BTJEE  119 

tinguished  appearance  and  commanding 
air,  Perkins  immediately  concluded  to 
be  Burr.  The  travellers  inquired  the 
way  to  the  house  of  one  Colonel  Hinson, 
about  seven  miles  distant  ;  and,  when 
they  had  gone,  Perkins  proposed  to  his 
companion  that  they  should  follow  and 
endeavor  to  arrest  them.  The  other  re 
fused  ;  and  Perkins  thereupon  sought  out 
a  neighboring  deputy  sheriff,  who  accom 
panied  him  to  Hinson' s  house,  which 
they  reached  shortly  before  midnight. 
It  was  agreed  that  Perkins  should  remain 
hidden  in  the  woods  while  the  sheriff 
should  reconnoitre  and  discover,  if  pos 
sible,  whether  the  suspected  traveller 
was  really  Burr,  returning  to  Perkins  so 
soon  as  he  had  ascertained  the  fact. 

The  sheriff  found  the  strangers  about 
sitting  down  to  supper  before  a  cheerful 
fire.  He  joined  them;  and,  although  he 
soon  discovered  the  identity  of  Burr,  he 
became  so  infatuated  with  Burr's  engag 
ing  manners  and  pleasant  conversation 


120  AAEON  BUEE 

that  lie  resolved  to  have  no  hand  in  ar 
resting  him,  whatever  his  crimes  might 
be.  This  resolve  he  could  not,  of  course, 
communicate  to  Perkins;  and  so,  when 
Burr  had  gone  to  bed,  the  sheriff 
stretched  himself  before  the  fire,  and 
calmly  went  to  sleep,  leaving  Perkins  to 
shiver  in  the  woods.  The  latter,  how 
ever,  after  waiting  an  hour,  conjectured 
what  had  happened,  and  immediately  set 
out,  travelled  all  night,  and  at  daybreak 
reached  Fort  Stoddart,  on  the  Alabama 
Eiver,  commanded  by  Captain,  afterward 
Major-general,  Gaines.  By  nine  o'clock 
the  next  morning  the  captain,  with  a 
file  of  troopers,  had  met  Burr  on  the 
highway,  and  arrested  him  in  the  name 
of  the  United  States. 

The  captain  determined  to  send  his 
prisoner  through  the  wilderness  to  Wash 
ington,  and  in  two  weeks  a  start  was 
made.  The  guard  consisted  of  nine 
troopers,  commanded  by  Perkins,  and 
strictly  enjoined  to  hold  no  conversation 


AAEON  BUBB  121 

with  Burr,  lest  they  should  be  overcome 
by  his  blandishments.  The  journey  was 
a  hard  one.  It  was  made  in  the  spring, 
when  the  water  was  high,  and  the  travel 
lers  were  often  obliged  to  swim  their 
horses  across  rivers  and  swollen  streams. 
Swamps  and  quicksands  presented  even 
greater  dangers,  and  hostile  Indians 
were  always  hovering  about  their  path. 
Through  all  these  perils  and  difficulties 
the  indomitable  Perkins  pushed  on  at 
the  extraordinary  rate  of  forty  miles  a 
day.  Burr,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  was 
never  sick  nor  sorry ;  and  on  March  26 
the  party  arrived  at  Eichmond,  Virginia, 
that  place  having  been  designated  by 
the  government.  Then  followed  a  re 
markable  trial,  presided  over  by  Mar 
shall,  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
Jefferson  himself  continually  advising 
the  prosecuting  attorney  by  letters  from 
Washington,  and  showing  an  indecent 
eagerness  for  the  conviction  of  the  pris 
oner.  The  trial  became  a  political  affair, 


122  AAEON  BUEE 

the  Federalists  supporting  Burr  by  way 
of  annoying .  the  administration.  Burr 
was  treated  with  great  consideration,  be 
ing  provided  with  luxurious  quarters, 
and  having  his  friends  about  him.  Gen 
eral  Jackson  was  in  Eichmond ;  and  he 
made  a  street  speech,  defending  Burr, 
and  denouncing  the  hostility  of  the  gov 
ernment.  Burr  sent  for  Theodosia  and 
her  husband,  writing  to  her,  in  different 
letters,  as  follows :  — 

"  I  beg  and  expect  of  you  that  you 
will  conduct  yourself  as  becomes  my 
daughter,  and  that  you  manifest  no  signs 
of  weakness  or  alarm.  .  .  .  Eemember, 
no  agitation,  no  complaints,  no  fears  or 
anxieties  on  the  road,  or  I  renounce 
thee.  .  .  . 

"I  may  be  immured  in  dungeons, 
chained,  murdered  in  legal  form ;  but  I 
cannot  be  humiliated  or  disgraced.  If 
absent,  you  will  suffer  great  solicitude. 
In  my  presence  you  will  feel  none." 

The  trial  lasted  for  weeks,  and  the 


AAEON  BUEE  123 

ablest  lawyers  in  the  United  States  took 
part  in  it;  but  Burr  himself  was  his 
own  chief  defender.  "He  appeared  in 
court/7  relates  Mr.  Parton,  " attired 
with  scrupulous  neatness,  in  black,  with 
powdered  hair  and  queue.  His  manner 
was  dignity  itself, —  composed,  polite, 
confident,  impressive.  He  had  the  air 
of  a  man  at  perfect  peace  with  himself, 
and  simply  intent  upon  the  business  of 
the  scene.  It  was  observed  that  he  never 
laughed  at  the  jokes  of  the  counsel.  His 
speeches  were  short,  concise,  exact. 
They  were  uttered  with  such  impressive 
distinctness  that  there  are  men  now  liv 
ing  who,  after  the  lapse  of  fifty  years, 
can  repeat  phrases  and  sentences  which 
they  heard  fall  from  his  lips  during  the 
trial. "  According  to  our  laws  the  jury 
in  a  criminal  case  must  return  a  verdict 
of  " guilty "  or  "not  guilty, "  no  quali 
fied  form  being  permissible.  But  in 
Burr's  case  the  jury  brought  in  a  kind 
of  Scotch  verdict,  as  follows  :  — 


124  AAEON  BUEE 

"  We,  of  the  jury,  say  that  Aaron  Burr 
is  not  proved  to  be  guilty  under  the  in 
dictment  by  any  evidence  submitted  to 
us.  We  therefore  find  him  not  guilty.7' 

Burr  protested  against  the  form  of 
this  verdict,  but,  as  some  of  the  jury  re 
fused  to  change  it?  it  was  accepted,  and 
the  ordinary  form  of  "not  guilty"  was 
entered  on  the  record.  Upon  the  con 
clusion  of  this  trial  for  treason,  another 
trial  for  misdemeanor  was  immediately 
begun  5  and  it  ended  with  a  verdict 
of  acquittal  upon  a  technicality.  Six 
months  were  consumed  in  the  two  pro 
ceedings.  In  the  autumn  Burr  was  en 
tertained  at  Baltimore  by  Luther  Martin, 
one  of  his  counsel.  How  he  spent  the 
winter  is  not  known ;  but  he  had  now 
determined  to  seek  support  in  Europe 
for  his  designs  against  Mexico.  In  June, 
1808,  after  a  most  painful  parting  with 
Theodosia,  who  came  on  to  New  York 
to  bid  him  good-by,  and  sat  up  with 
him  the  whole  night  before  his  depart- 


AAEON  BUEE  125 

ure,  Aaron  Burr,  former  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States,  once  the  rival  of 
Hamilton  at  the  bar  and  of  Jefferson  in 
politics,  was  secretly  conveyed  on  board 
a  packet  ship,  and  under  an  assumed 
name,  like  an  escaping  felon,  sailed  for 
England. 


YIIL 

A  FEW  days  before  Burr  arrived  in 
London,  in  July,  1808,  Joseph  Bona 
parte  entered  Madrid  as  king  of  Spain. 
This  event  was  fatal  to  Burr's  design  of 
obtaining  assistance  from  England  in 
wresting  Mexico  from  the  Spanish,  for 
England  immediately  took  the  part  of 
the  dethroned  Spanish  king.  Neverthe 
less,  with  characteristic  promptitude, 
Burr  presented  his  letters  at  the  foreign 
office  on  the  very  day  of  his  arrival; 
and  he  had  interviews  subsequently  with 
many  official  persons,  but  without  re 
sult.  The  English  ministry  looked  upon 
him  with  suspicion,  and  were  even  in 
clined  to  forbid  his  residence  in  London. 
Burr,  however,  with  his  usual  audacity, 
declared  that  he  was  born  a  British  sub 
ject,  which  was,  of  course,  true,  and 
that  he  still  remained  such,  notwith 
standing  that  little  affair  of  the  Eevolu- 
tion,  and  consequently  could  not  be  ban- 


AAEON  BUEE  127 

ished  from  Great  Britain.  This  prepos 
terous  claim  was  gravely  referred  to  the 
law  officers  of  the  crown,  and  mean 
while  Burr  was  hospitably  received  by 
the  most  interesting  people  in  the  capi 
tal.  He  had  the  entree  of  Holland 
House,  was  entertained  by  the  Earl  of 
Bridgewater,  met  Lamb,  knew  Godwin 
intimately,  and  lived  in  the  closest  inter 
course  with  Jeremy  Bentham,  whom  he 
almost  persuaded  to  take  up  his  resi 
dence  on  the  table-lands  of  Mexico. 

Burr  wrote  to  Theodosia  by  every 
mail  5  and  during  the  whole  period  of 
his  exile  he  kept  a  diary  addressed  to 
her,  and  intended  for  her  eyes  alone. 
His  profound  affection  for  Theodosia 
and  her  child  is  apparent  in  his  letters, 
from  which  the  following  extracts  are 
taken :  — 

"Some  obscure  hints  in  one  of  your 
letters  have  saddened  my  heart.  From 
son  pere  I  have  merited  neither  suspicion 
nor  reserve.  .  .  .  Have  you  forgotten  the 


128  AAEON  BURR 

mad  project  of  going  to  England!  the 
anxiety  and  misery  it  cost  us  for  some 
days  ?  I  should  have  thanked  the  man 
who  had  thus  treated  my  child.  In 
deed,  my  dear  Theodosia,  such  things 
sink  into  my  soul.  They  seem  to  invade 
the  very  sanctuary  of  happiness.  .  .  . 
Dear  little  Gampy, — tell  me  a  great  deal 
about  him,  or  I  shall  not  value  your 
letters.  Indeed,  I  will  return  them  un 
opened.  Is  not  that  good  Irish  ?  .  .  .  If 
you  had  one  particle  of  invention  or 
genius,  you  would  have  taught  A.  B.  A. 
his  a,  b,  c,  long  before  this.  God  mend 
you.  His  fibbing  is  an  inheritance, 
which  pride,  an  inheritance,  will  cure. 
His  mother  went  through  that  process. 
.  .  .  The  letter  of  A.  B.  A.  at  the  foot 
of  yours  was  far  the  more  interesting.  I 
have  studied  every  pot-hook  and  tram 
mel  of  his  first  literary  performance  to 
see  what  rays  of  genius  could  be  dis 
covered.  .  .  .  My  letters  to  others  are 
always  ready  for  the  foreign  mail ;  but 


AAEON  BURE  129 

toward  you  a  desire  to  say  something  at 
the  last  moment,  a  reluctance  resem 
bling  that  of  parting, — but  all  this  you 
know  and  feel." 

After  a  stay  of  six  months  in  London, 
Burr  went  northward  by  coach.  He 
stopped  at  Oxford  long  enough  to  de 
fend  the  philosophy  of  Bentham  in  one  of 
the  University  Common-rooms,  and  then 
pushed  on  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  was 
received  with  the  most  nattering  atten 
tions  by  the  grandees  and  celebrities 
of  the  place,  including  Walter  Scott, 
Jeffrey,  and  the  Duchess  of  Gordon. 
Burr  was  visited  by  some  gleams  of  hope 
at  this  time.  Cobbett,  who  knew  him  in 
the  United  States,  had  a  plan  for  bring 
ing  him  into  the  British  Parliament ;  and 
in  February  he  was  summoned  back  to 
London,  where  he  had  several  interviews 
upon  the  subject  of  Mexico  with  Lord 
Melville,  but  it  all  came  to  nothing. 
During  his  second  residence  in  London 
Burr  began  to  feel  a  pressure  of  poverty, 


130  AAEON  BUBK 

from  which  lie  was  never  afterward  free 
while  he  remained  abroad.  Certain 
payments  due  from  persons  in  the 
United  States  upon  which  he  depended 
were  not  made ;  and,  while  Burr  was 
staying  with  Benthain  in  London,  he 
anticipated  an  arrest  for  debt.  To  his 
credit,  be  it  recorded,  he  refrained  from 
borrowing  money  of  his  venerable  friend, 
but  instead  moved  to  an  obscure  lodging, 
and  changed  his  name.  "The  benevo 
lent  heart  of  Jeremy  Bentham,"  he 
wrote  in  the  diary,  "  shall  never  be 
saddened  by  the  spectacle  of  Gamp's 
arrest. " 

Shortly  after  this,  and  perhaps  owing 
in  part  to  his  change  of  name,  his  papers 
were  seized  by  emissaries  of  the  foreign 
office ;  and  he  was  placed  in  custody  of 
a  messenger,  who  took  him  to  his  own 
house.  In  this  disagreeable  situation 
Burr  comforted  himself  with  his  usual 
philosophic  serenity,  reading  such  books 
as  he  found  in  the  house,  playing  whist 


AAEON  BUEE  131 

with  the  messenger  and  his  wife  till 
11  P.M.,  and  then  engaging  in  a  game 
of  chess  which  lasted,  as  the  diary  re 
lates,  "  till  the  poor  fellow  [the  messen 
ger]  was  almost  crazed.'7 

After  a  few  days'  detention,  Burr  was 
released  upon  condition  that  he  should 
leave  England,  transportation  being 
offered  him  to  any  country  which  he 
might  select.  He  chose  Sweden,  and 
proceeded  to  Stockholm,  where  he  at 
once  became  a  favorite  in  the  highest 
society  of  the  place.  "An  officer  of 
rank,'7  he  sets  down  in  his  diary, 
"  remarked  to  me  that  I  spoke  French 
much  better  than  English,  and  inquired 
which  of  the  European  languages  the 
native  language  of  the  Americans  most 
resembled."  Burr  liked  the  Swedes, 
finding  them  more  congenial  than  the 
English.  He  went  to  a  concert  at  Stock 
holm.  "Every  countenance  was  af 
fected  by  those  emotions  to  which  the 
music  was  adapted.  In  England  you 


132  AAEON  BUBB 

see  no  expression  painted  on  the  visage 
at  a  concert.  All  is  sombre  and  grim. 
They  cry  Bravo  !  Bravissimo  !  with  the 
same  countenance  that  they  G  —  d  damn 
their  servants  and  their  government/' 

Wherever  Burr  went,  he  carried  with 
him  an  oil  painting  of  Theodosia ;  and  at 
Stockholm  he  had  it  retouched  by  Breda, 
a  celebrated  artist.  In  the  diary  he 
writes:  "To  Breda's,  where  passed  an 
hour  looking  at  your  picture.  I  was 
exceedingly  struck  and  alarmed  to  see  it 
pale  and  faded.  Why  was  not  this  per 
ceived  before?  Perhaps  it  may  arise 
from  being  placed  among  his  portraits, 
which  are  very  high-colored.  Yet  the 
impression  that  it  is  faded  is  fixed  on  my 
mind,  and  has  almost  made  me  supersti 
tious."  Some  weeks  later  he  notes  in 
the  diary  :  "  Yesterday  opened  your 
picture.  It  is  in  perfect  order.  Since 
opening  it  at  Stockholm,  I  have  carried 
it  the  whole  way  (200  miles)  on  my  lap. 
Indeed,  madam,  you  gened  me  not  a 


AAEON  BUEE  133 

little.  You  are  now  hung  up  in  my 
room,  so  that  I  can  talk  with  you." 
And  again,  after  packing  up  for  another 
journey:  "Done.  Even  the  picture  all 
packed.  I  bade  you  ~bon  soir  a  dozen 
times  before  I  shut  you  up  in  that  dark 
case.  I  can  never  do  it  without  regret. 
It  seems  as  if  I  were  burying  you  alive." 

At  the  end  of  October,  1809,  Burr  left 
Sweden,  crossing  in  an  open  boat  to 
Elsinore  on  the  coast  of  Denmark.  At 
Gdttingen  he  became  intimate  with  Prof. 
Heeren.  At  Weimar  he  met  Goethe, 
dined  with  the  ducal  family,  and,  falling 
in  love  with  a  lady  of  the  court  circle, 
tore  himself  away  abruptly. 

His  hopes  were  revived  by  news  that 
the  emperor  had  given  his  assent  to  the 
independence  of  Mexico.  February  16, 
1810,  he  arrived  in  Paris,  and  made 
every  effort  to  obtain  an  interview  with 
Napoleon  or  with  some  person  in  his 
confidence.  He  waited  upon  various 
kings  and  dukes,  wrote  letters  and  me- 


134  AAEON  BUEE 

morials,  but  all  to  no  purpose ;  and, 
after  a  month  of  these  fruitless  endeav 
ors,  he  applied  for  a  passport,  in  order 
that  he  might  return  to  the  United 
States.  The  passport  was  refused,  the 
refusal  being  probably  due  to  General 
Armstrong,  an  adherent  of  Jefferson, 
who  was  then  the  American  minister 
at  Paris.  Burr  was  now  in  a  desperate 
situation.  "This  matter  is  rather 
grave,'7  he  notes  in  the  diary.  "  Win 
ter  approaches.  No  prospect  of  hav 
ing  leave  to  quit  the  empire,  and  still 
less  of  any  means  of  living  in  it.  ...  I 
should  be  glad  of  a  good  fire,  but  see 
no  prospect.'7 

The  story  of  his  continually  frustrated 
attempts  to  procure  the  passport  gives 
one  the  painful  impression  of  a  night 
mare.  Once  it  was  granted,  made  out, 
but  lost  in  transmission  ;  and  Burr  spent 
five  weeks  in  a  vain  attempt  to  trace  it 
through  the  mazes  of  French  bureau 
cracy.  Through  all  this  weary  period, 


AAEON  BUEE  135 

thougli  in  straits  for  money,  homesick, 
and  most  eager  to  escape  from  his  im 
prisonment  in  France,  he  preserved  his 
equanimity,  and  amused  himself  as  much 
as  he  could.  The  nearest  approach  in 
his  diary  to  melancholy  or  downhearted- 
ness  is  found  in  the  following  para 
graph :  "At  10  to  the  club  to  read 
newspapers  and  hear  the  news,  which  I 
find  is  of  some  consequence  to  me,  if,  in 
deed,  anything  be  of  any  consequence. " 
At  last,  in  July,  1811,  the  passport  was 
procured  by  the  kind  intervention  of 
the  Duke  of  Bassano  and  Baron  Denon. 
During  this  time  Burr  existed  chiefly, 
if  not  entirely,  on  money  borrowed  from 
various  people,  especially  from  the  Duke 
of  Bassano,  who  lent  him  a  considera 
ble  sum.  Burr  left  directions  in  his 
will  for  its  repayment,  but  he  did  not 
leave  the  necessary  funds.  Mr.  Edward 
Griswold,  of  New  York,  also  befriended 
him  with  a  loan  of  money.  Shortly  be 
fore  leaving  Paris,  he  received  the  fol- 


136  AAEON  BUEE 

lowing  letter  from  Theodosia,  the  first 
for  nearly  a  year,  so  irregular  were  the 
mails :  "I  have  written  a  second  time  to 
the  gentlemen  who  promised  me  the  sup 
ply  of  funds  5  but  there  is  little  to  be 
hoped  from  him.  .  .  .  His  conduct  is  a 
serious  addition  to  all  the  accumulated 
difficulties  which  already  pour  in  upon 
us,  and  which  would  absolutely  over 
whelm  any  other  being  than  yourself. 
Indeed,  I  witness  your  extraordinary 
fortitude  with  new  wonder  at  every  new 
misfortune.  Often,  after  reflecting  on  this 
subject,  you  appear  to  me  so  superior, 
so  elevated  above  all  other  men,  I  con 
template  you  with  such  a  strange  mixt 
ure  of  humility,  admiration,  reverence, 
love,  and  pride  that  very  little  super 
stition  would  be  necessary  to  make  me 
worship  you  as  a  superior  being.  Such 
enthusiasm  does  your  character  excite  in 
me.  When  I  afterward  revert  to  my 
self,  how  insignificant  do  my  best  qual 
ities  appear !  My  vanity  would  be 


AAEON  BTJEE  137 

greater  if  I  had  not  been  placed  so  near 
you  ;  and  yet  my  pride  is  our  relation 
ship.  I  had  rather  not  live  than  not  be 
the  daughter  of  such  a  man.7' 

October  1,  1811,  Burr  sailed  on  the 
American  ship  Vigilant,  bound  for  home ; 
but  within  a  few  hours  the  ship  was 
captured  by  a  British  frigate,  and 
taken  to  Yarmouth.  Burr  went  up  to 
London;  and  then  followed  another 
wretched  period  of  six  months,  during 
which  he  endeavored  to  procure,  first, 
the  means  to  pay  his  passage  home, — for 
he  could  not  recover  the  money  paid  to 
the  Vigilant j — and  then  an  opportunity. 
Bentham  and  his  other  friends  welcomed 
him,  but  he  was  in  difficulties  which 
would  have  weighed  any  other  man  to 
the  ground.  One  day  he  records  in  the 
diary:  "Have  left  in  cash  two  half 
pence,  which  is  much  better  than  one 
penny,  because  they  jingle;  and  thus 
one  \rnay  refresh  one's  self  with  the 
music, " 


138  AABOK  BUBK 

Burr,  though  still  buoyant,  was  now 
a  little  demoralized ;  or  it  may  be  that 
the  weaknesses  of  his  character,  though 
not  really  more  pronounced,  were  more 
apparent  at  this  time.  He  lay  late  in 
the  morning.  His  room  and  his  papers 
were  always  in  disorder.  He  put  off  from 
day  fco  day  what  was  necessary  to  be 
done.  When  he  had  money,  he  gave  it 
away  or  spent  it  foolishly.  The  follow 
ing  is  a  characteristic  entry  in  the 
diary:  "  Bought  a  pair  of  pantaloons, 
which  I  did  not  want,  205.  My  10 
pounds  is  reduced  to  60s.,  and  thus  I 
progress. "  He  was  full  of  schemes  for 
raising  money, — by  improving  the  steam- 
engine,  by  the  sale  of  a  new  process  for 
constructing  false  teeth,  by  speculation 
in  the  shares  of  the  Holland  Land  Com 
pany,  by  making  vinegar  out  of  wood; 
but  none  of  these  succeeded.  At  last  he 
sold  some  of  the  books  and  trinkets  in 
tended  for  Theodosia  and  her  boy,  bor 
rowed  twenty  pounds  of  his  friend, 


AAEON  BUEE  139 

Mr.  Eeeve,  at  the  foreign  office,  and  in 
March,  1812,  paid  his  passage  money  in 
the  ship  Aurora,  bound  for  Boston  from 
Gravesend. 

Noon  was  the  time  of  sailing;  but 
Burr,  owing  to  a  series  of  accidents  and 
mistakes,  did  not  reach  Gravesend  until 
the  vessel  was  five  hours  on  her  way 
down  the  river.  He  hired  two  men  to 
row  him,  drawing  upon  a  friend  in 
London  to  pay  them  ;  and  at  sunset,  the 
weather  being  cold  and  blustering,  they 
started  in  a  small  skiff  to  overtake  the 
ship.  It  was  a  question  whether  they 
would  succeed  in  doing  so ;  and,  if  they 
failed,  Burr  would  be  left  in  England 
without  a  penny  and  with  every  re 
source  exhausted.  And  yet,  even  in  this 
perilous  situation,  he  calmly  lay  down 
in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  covered  him 
self  with  the  great- coats  of  the  men,  and 
slept  soundly  until  midnight,  when  he 
awoke  to  find  that  they  had  overhauled 
the  Aurora  twenty-seven  miles  from 
Gravesend. 


140  AAEON  BUEE 

The  worst  misfortunes  of  Burr's  life 
were  yet  in  store  for  him.  About  six 
weeks  after  his  return  to  New  York  he 
received  a  letter  from  Theodosia  in 
South  Carolina,  saying  that  her  boy  was 
dead.  He  was  eleven  years  old,  and  had 
already  given  proof  of  such  courage  and 
talents  as  might  have  been  expected  from 
his  ancestry.  Theodosia' s  health  was 
completely  shattered  by  the  event ;  and 
some  months  later,  her  husband  being 
then  governor  of  the  State,  and  unable 
to  leave  it,  she  embarked  for  New  York 
on  the  schooner  Patriot,  attended  by  her 
maid  and  by  a  doctor  whom  Burr  had  sent. 
The  Patriot  was  never  heard  of  after 
ward,  and  was  supposed  to  have  foun 
dered  in  a  gale  off  Cape  Hatteras.  The 
agony  of  apprehension,  and  at  last  of 
certainty,  endured  by  the  husband  and 
father  is  apparent  in  the  letters  which 
they  exchanged.  Mr.  Alston  never  re 
covered  from  the  blow,  and  died  a  few 
years  later.  Some  months  after  the  loss 


AAEON  BURR  141 

of  Theodosia,  in  writing  to  a  friend, 
whose  child  had  died,  Burr  said:  "Ever 
since  the  event  which  separated  me  from 
mankind,  I  have  been  able  neither  to 
give  nor  to  receive  consolation." 

Of  Burr's  remaining  years  the  tale  is 
soon  told.  He  hung  out  a  modest  tin 
sign  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  at 
the  age  of  fifty-six  began  life  again  as  a 
lawyer.  His  old  friend,  Colonel  Troup, 
who  had  now  retired,  lent  him  a  law 
library;  and  many  of  his  former  adher 
ents  called  upon  him,  and  gave  him 
business.  He  appears  to  have  had  a 
considerable  practice,  especially  at  first; 
but  his  practice  appears  also  to  have 
been  of  a  rather  obscure  kind,  and  not 
such  as  brought  him  much  into  court. 
It  is  probable  that  no  one  cared  to  em 
ploy  as  his  advocate  before  a  jury  a 
lawyer  held  in  such  evil  repute  as  Burr. 
He  was  cut  right  and  left  by  former 
acquaintances,  subjected  to  a  thousand 
rebuffs,  and  held  in  such  general  odium 


142  AAEOK  BUEE 

that  life  would  have  been  intolerable  to 
a  man  of  less  courage  and  serenity. 
And  yet,  as  regards  the  chief  causes  of 
this  odium, — namely,  his  alleged  treach 
ery  to  the  Eepublican  party  and  his  duel 
with  Hamilton, — it  was  undeserved. 

We  have  the  following  description  of 
his  appearance  in  the  year  1823 :  "His 
head  was  well  shaped.  His  forehead  was 
high,  protruding,  but  narrow  directly 
over  the  eyes,  and  widening  immediately 
back.  His  feet  and  hands  were  peculiarly 
small,  the  nose  rather  large,  with  open, 
expanding  nostrils,  and  the  ears  so  small 
as  almost  to  be  a  deformity.  His  face 
bore  in  repose  a  sad  and  melancholy  air. 
He  wore  his  hair  —  which,  till  quite  late 
in  life,  was  long  and  thick,  excepting  in 
the  front  of  the  head  —  massed  up  on 
the  top,  held  by  a  small  shell  comb,  the 
whole  head  profusely  powdered.  His 
usual  dress  was  a  single  blue-breasted 
coat,  with  standing  collar,  a  buff  vest, 
and  dark  trousers.  In  winter  he  wore  a 
fur  cap  and  buckskin  mittens." 


AAEON  BUEK  143 

In  Ms  old  age,  Burr  married  a  rich 
widow,  named  Jumel,  somewhat  against 
her  inclination,  taking  the  fortress  almost 
by  storm,  and  lived  happily  with  her 
until  a  coolness  arose  between  them  from 
the  fact  that  Burr  had  muddled  away 
in  speculation  so  much  of  her  fortune 
as  he  could  lay  hands  upon.  Neverthe 
less,  though  they  separated,  his  wife  re 
tained  a  kindly  friendship  for  him. 

This  second  marriage  took  place  when 
Burr  was  seventy  ;  and  in  the  same  year 
he  became  the  father  of  an  illegitimate 
child,  to  whom  he  left  a  legacy.  In  the 
same  year,  also,  we  find  him  writing 
from  Albany  to  his  partner  :  "  Arrived 
this  evening  between  six  and  seven 
o'clock,  having  been  forty-five  hours  in 
the  stage  without  intermission,  except  to 
eat  a  hearty  meal.  Stages  in  very  bad 
order.  .  .  .  The  night  was  uncomfor 
table  ;  the  curtains  torn  and  flying  all 
about,  so  that  we  had  plenty  of  fresh 
air.  .  .  .  Came  neither  fatigued  nor 


144  AAEON   BUEE 

sleepy."  But  even  Aaron  Burr  could 
not  live  forever.  In  1833,  being  then 
seventy-seven,  he  suffered  a  slight  shock 
of  paralysis,  from  which  he  recovered 
sufficiently  to  resume  his  business.  A 
few  months  later,  however,  he  had  another 
shock,  and  lay  ill  and  helpless  at  his 
office,  which  was  also  his  home.  In  this 
predicament  he  was  visited  by  an  old 
friend,  a  Scotchwoman,  whose  father,  an 
officer  in  the  British  army,  had  been 
intimate  with  Burr.  This  lady,  having 
lost  her  property,  was  then  keeping  a 
boarding-house  in  what  was  once  the 
residence  of  Governor  John  Jay ;  and 
thither  she  caused  Burr  to  be  brought. 
Here,  with  his  books,  pictures,  and  relics 
about  him,  and  kindly  cared  for,  Burr 
spent  the  next  two  years. 

In  the  summer  of  1836  the  Jay  house 
was  to  be  torn  down,  and  Burr's  friends 
removed  him  upon  a  litter  to  Port  Eich- 
mond  in  Staten  Island.  As  the  summer 
advanced,  his  strength  declined,  though 


AAEON  BUEE  145 

his  mind  remained  as  clear  as  ever.  He 
was  visited  frequently  by  a  clergyman, 
who  read  to  him  and  prayed  for  him. 
On  the  last  day  of  Burr's  life  this  cler 
gyman  questioned  the  old  colonel  as  to 
what  belief  he  had  in  a  future  state  and 
in  the  forgiveness  of  his  own  sins.  "  Mr. 
Burr  answered, "  he  relates,  "  with  deep 
and  evident  emotion,  '  On  that  subject  I 
am  coy. ' ' '  This  characteristic  sentence 
was  the  last  that  he  uttered.  He  died 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  Sep 
tember  14,  1836,  being  then  eighty  years 
and  seven  months  old.  In  accordance  with 
his  own  request,  he  was  buried  in  Prince 
ton,  at  the  feet  of  those  godly  men,  his 
father  and  grandfather,  the  two  presi 
dents  of  the  college,  who  lie  there,  side 
by  side. 

One  who  reads  Burr's  life  can  hardly 
help  asking  the  question,  Did  he  believe 
in  himself,  or  was  he  consciously  and 
intentionally  a  bad  man  ?  The  true  an 
swer  would  seem  to  be  that  Burr  re- 


146  AAEON  BUEE 

garded  himself  as,  on  the  whole,  an 
exemplary  character.  A  man  who  is 
deficient  in  moral  sense  cannot  of  course 
be  aware  of  the  deficiency ;  for,  if  he  were 
so,  the  deficiency  would  cease  to  exist. 
-Moreover,  Burr's  worst  trait  was  his  ten 
dency  to  deceive  ;  and  it  is  notorious  that 
one  who  habitually  deceives  others  is 
always,  in  the  end,  his  own  chief  victim. 
The  practice  is  destructive  to  self-knowl 
edge.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Burr 
was  a  profligate  and,  probably,  a  traitor. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  he  was  dis 
honest  and  insincere,  that  he  can  be  de 
fended  from  the  charge  of  lying  only  by 
confessing  that  he  was  guilty  of  misrep 
resentations  which  bear  a  family  resem 
blance  to  lies,  that  he  spent  and  gave 
away  other  people's  money  as  lavishly 
as  he  did  his  own. 

These  are  grave  faults  5  but  on  the 
other  side  must  be  considered  Burr's 
courage  and  fortitude,  his  generosity,  his 
magnanimity,  and,  above  all,  his  capac- 


AAEON   BUEE  147 

ity  for  family  affection.  No  heartless 
villain,  such  as  Burr  has  been  repre 
sented,  could  have  won  and  retained  the 
love  of  such  a  wife  and  of  such  a  daugh 
ter  as  Burr  had.  When  all  the  other 
witnesses  have  been  heard,  let  the  two 
Theodosias  be  summoned,  and  especially 
that  daughter  who  showed  toward  him 
an  affectionate  veneration  unsurpassed 
by  any  recorded  in  history  or  romance. 
Such  an  advocate  as  Theodosia  the 
younger  must  avail  in  some  degree,  even 
though  the  culprit  were  brought  before 
the  bar  of  Heaven  itself. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY 

I.  BURR  BIBLIOGRAPHY.  By  H.  B. 
Tompkins.  (Brooklyn,  N.Y.  :  Histori 
cal  Printing  Club,  1892.)  Complete 
and  beautifully  printed. 

V  II.  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  AARON  BURR. 
By  J.  Par  ton.  (1858.)  This  is  by  far 
the  fullest  and  best  account  of  Aaron 
Burr.  There  is  an  acute  but  perhaps 
too  severe  review  of  it  in  the  first  vol 
ume  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

-/III.  MEMOIRS  OF  AARON  BURR.  By 
Matthew  L.  Davis.  (1837.)  Almost 
all  that  is  valuable  in  this  book  is  incor 
porated  in  Mr.  Parton's  book. 

IV.  PRIVATE  JOURNAL  OF  AARON 
BURR  DURING  HIS  EESIDENCE  IN 
EUROPE.  (1838.)  This  journal  is  of 
great  interest  to  the  student  of  Burr's 
character. 

Y.  LIFE  OF  AARON  BURR.  By  Samuel 
L.  Knapp.  (1835.) 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  149 

VI.  LIFE  or  AARON  BURR.    By  Charles 
Burr  Todd.      (Pamphlet.     New  York, 
1879:    S.  W.  Green,  16  Jacob  Street.) 
Good  and  readable. 

VII.  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  ^ 
By    Henry    Adams.      This    contains   a 
thorough  and  lucid  account  of  Burr's 
Western  schemes. 

VIII.  THE  ATTEMPTS  MADE  TO  SEPA 
RATE  THE  WEST  FROM  THE  AMERICAN 
UNION.     By  the  Et.  Eev.  C.  F.  Eobert- 
son,  D.D.,  LL.D.    (Pamphlet.  St.  Louis, 
1885 :  Missouri  Historical  Society. )    This 
pamphlet  contains  a  bibliography  of  its 
subject. 

IK.  EEMINISCENCES  OF  J.  A.  HAMIL 
TON.     (New  York,  1869:  Scribner  &  Co. )    .,  . 
The  author  was  a  son  of  Alexander  Ham 
ilton. 

3L.  MEMOIRS  OF  MY  OWN  TIMES.     By     ** 
Gen.  James  Wilkinson.     (1816. ) 


150  BIBLIOGBAPHY 

XL  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  CHARLES  Bro- 
DLE.  (Philadelphia,  1883:  E.  Claxton 
&  Co. )  The  Appendix  contains  several 
interesting  letters  from  Burr  and  Wilk 
inson,  not  before  printed. 

XII.  THE  TRIAL  OF  COLONEL  AARON 
BURR.       (In    Kiclimond,    May,     1807; 
Washington,  1807.) 

XIII.  ANOTHER  ACCOUNT.     By  J.   J. 
Coonibs.     (Washington,  1864:  W.  H.  & 
C.  H.  Morrison. ) 

XIV.  MESSAGES  OF  PRESIDENT  JEFFER 
SON  RELATING   TO  THE  BURR  CONSPIR 
ACY.     American  State  Papers.     Vol.  I. 

XV.  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.     (Bos 
ton,    1876:    James   E.    Osgood    &    Co.) 
See  Vol.  I.  p.  261;  Vol.  II.  pp.  35,  113, 
292. 


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